


The Art of the Fugue

by bloodredrosez



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Rating: NC17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:19:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 65,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredrosez/pseuds/bloodredrosez
Summary: Deep within, he had always blamed himself for her death and for the death of the ephemeral happiness they had known as a ménage à trois.  Now, when past collides with present, can Jean-Claude save Anita and Asher?*This is a completed work currently being reposted from POMME DE SANG/SOURDRE DE SANG archives*





	1. Flight

*This work was originally from October 17, 2005 and posted at Pomme de Sang / Sourdre de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams.*

Disclaimer: This story is written purely for the enjoyment of the fans. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: Inspired by J.S. Bach’s last unfinished work, “The Art of the Fugue” BWV 1080. Musically, a fugue begins with a brief theme by a single voice, which is joined by other voices as the theme is repeated in contrapuntal accompaniment. Psychologically, the term fugue describes a memory disorder in which one is conscious of one’s actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state. I use the word here to describe the dreamlike quality of memory—as the original Latin expresses, “flight.”

You can listen to Bach’s “The Art of the Fugue” here: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXQY2dS1Srk>

My favorite is the fourteenth and but the fourth is nice as well.

*          *          *

**F L I G H T**

*          *          *

_There was once a young mortal man named Jean-Claude…_

He was lost in the somber silence of the night. Surrounded by the evidence of his nostalgia, the painting on the wall and the decorations he had so carefully chosen, Jean-Claude was tempted to find some minor distraction. He looked down at the carefully preserved book in his hand, running a finger over the aged leather, and watched as the stranger that was himself reluctantly opened the book.

Only a few pages were covered with writing, and they would have been meaningless to any other than the writer. He noted absently, as if he were a long distance away, that the ink was fading after all this time. Perhaps one day it would become too faint to decipher.

The thought crossed his mind before he could stop it, though he had vaguely tried to ignore it the whole evening. He wondered if Asher was secreted in his own rooms, perhaps sitting by candlelight as well, the memories too raw to expose to the harsher artificial lighting of these modern days. With just a thought, he could reach out to him and know if the golden-haired vampire _was_ only a few chambers away, or if he had gone out to some club to lose himself for the night, intoxicated by things more potent than alcohol. Was blood sweeter when drunken in sorrow?

The molten wax ran down the side of one candle, pooling at the base, and Jean-Claude shuddered in the way that vampires did—frozen in place, but something inside violently rebelling. He reached out deliberately and touched the hot wax, sensitive fingertips enveloped in sudden pain. But even this was a sham; how could it compare to the touch of holy water? How could it compare to death, the chasm that separated mortal from immortal, human from vampire?

 _Her last cry was your name, Jean-Claude…because even then, she believed you could save her._ That piece of information that Asher had finally let slip burned in his heart, proof that time had dulled nothing. Sudden anger at himself made him force himself to read the words on the pages in front of him, to whisper her name in his mind, a lovely, lonely caress. He allowed himself to remember her, and Asher, and what they had shared.  

He had killed her tonight, so many years ago.

After so many years he had forgotten his own birthday, as had Asher. But neither could forget the day that marked the death of their love, the death of their lover. Again, Jean-Claude found himself wishing that he could come up with some excuse to call Asher to him, to bridge the distance between them. It was only cowardice, however. He knew that Asher would offer some platitudes about forgiving him. He even knew that the other vampire might mean all of the things he said. For a long time, Asher had hated him, had wanted revenge. He never knew that Jean-Claude had blamed himself more than anyone else ever could.

The candle wax dripped onto the back of his hand and left his pale skin angrily red, but he would heal, almost too quickly. Jean-Claude closed the old diary and then cursed as a sudden, sharp knock on the door caused him to knock over one of the candles. His sight more than enough to compensate for the dimness of the room, he rose and opened the door.

Asher stood outside, his face completely expressionless. For a moment they stared at each other and Jean-Claude entertained the notion that the other vampire had come to him of his own volition. Ruthlessly he quelled the emotion that made him want to reach out and seize hold of the other’s hand. They had not seen each other for a few days, as if avoidance would allow them to forget, or ease the pain. It only made everything worse, now.

His hopes were destroyed a few moments later when Asher spoke. “You were not answering any calls.”

For a moment longer, Jean-Claude stared, unable to believe what had finally brought Asher to his door. He wanted to close the door, turn his back to the golden illusion before him, and pretend that this night was no different from any other in his long existence.

“Is this about one of the clubs?” he snapped instead, emotions riding high and unstable. “I do not want to hear about it tonight.” His entrepreneurial penchant was a little part of what made his existence interesting, even enjoyable at times, but he could not care less if Asher had come with the news that every single one of his businesses had burned down. Not tonight.

He hated feeling so vulnerable. No, that was not it. He had been vulnerable almost all the time he had spent both as a human and vampire, but he had learned, under Belle Morte, not to show it. In the glittering, dangerous vampire courts, appearance was everything. But Asher was looking at him a little differently, and he knew that he was not as unreadable as he needed to be.    

The dim candlelight, the way that Asher had let his hair veil his face again, was too intimate. Too much like what he had written about—Asher by firelight, Asher of the night, Asher stretched out with Julianna in his arms, both languid after pleasure.

“You live in the past too often, Jean-Claude.”

Coming from Asher, it seemed terribly wrong. He wanted to rage at him, _do you think either of us will ever be able to forget her? To live long enough that when we think of Julianna, it causes nothing more than a mild pang in the heart, a smile of fond reminiscence?_

”I do not. I do not think of the past at all.” _Liar_ , his mind accused. He had never been good at knowing where to place that line separating past and present. What if something had never ended, what if he had never stopped longing for those past days? What if he had never stopped loving Asher?  

“Why do you lie to me, when you know I can see the truth with the merest glance into your eyes?” Asher’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile at the irony of vampires as servants of truth.  

Another moment of silence, while Jean-Claude strove for some measure of concealment, and Asher watched in mocking amusement.

“Why have you come here, Asher?”

He tilted his face up as if to look through the ceiling to the stars far, far above them. No saving grace appeared. “And if I said, Jean-Claude, ‘to share your memories?’”

It was not what either had expected for him to say, and Asher stood still, radiating _something_ , something fierce and angry, hard and helpless. Then he was moving swiftly on, withdrawing it all into himself again, until they were as impersonal as two knights on opposite sides of a chessboard, one dark, one light.

“The Council requests your presence. They have decided upon Belle Morte’s court for the meeting place.” A sardonic smile played on lips meant for seduction, and Jean-Claude felt himself turn to ice.

“Why?”

Brilliant blue eyes glittered as Asher gave a graceful shrug. “To meet the newest _sourdre de sang_. You cannot avoid them forever. They expect you within a week.” And then, as if he could not help himself, “You need not be worried, Jean-Claude. After all, you always were good at survival.”

There was a painful, heavy silence. Asher reached out as if to touch his face but Jean-Claude took a step back. There was drowning regret in those icy pale orbs, and he opened his mouth, but Jean-Claude’s hand suddenly covered his lips, sealing away the apology.

“No,” he said, voice rough as broken glass. “No, you are right.”

Those lips were soft and perfect beneath his fingers and for a moment his traitorous mind imagined what they would feel like in a kiss, and reminded him of memories he tried so hard to forget. Slowly, Jean-Claude took his hand away. _He is not yours, he blames you after all, he hates you, hates, hates, hate—_

He took two steps back and closed the door, then turned around and leaned against it, feeling Asher’s presence on the other side like an otherworldly fire. It was a long time before the warmth left.      

 

*           *           *

“Asher will take care of everything,” he had said blankly, and Anita had felt like she was missing enough subtext to fill a textbook. Someone should write a Manual on How to Understand French Master Vampires, she thought irritably when subsequent pokes and prods failed to turn up anything. Even hitting him over the head with her blunt questions had only resulted in an even blanker mask, if that was possible.

Yes, he absolutely needed to go to Europe. No, they weren’t fighting. No, nothing had happened.

She almost wanted to tear out her hair in frustration. Or she could always tear out _his_ hair, which on second thought, might prove to be infinitely more satisfying. Despite both of her vampires’ claims to the contrary, there was most definitely something wrong. It wasn’t like they weren’t talking to each other, or that they sent each other glares when they though she wasn’t looking, or anything of the sort. She could have handled that easily enough. But whatever was between them was starting to make the Cold War as nice as a day under the Hawaiian sun.

“I will only be gone for two days,” Jean-Claude said when she went to see him off.

“You know, I _could_ cancel all the appointments, and I’m sure Zerbrowski and the boys can do fine without me for just two days. I mean, how many people can be killed in forty-eight hours, anyway?”

“ _Non, ma petite_ ,” he said, with a slight smile that seemed to take too much effort to produce. “I will take Jason as my _pomme de sang_ , and Meng Die, who is strong and of my line, and Faust. I would bring Requiem, but it is not good to remind Belle of what she has lost. It is enough. They would not dare harm a _sourdre de sang_ , and to bring more would display insecurity. It is very true that vampire politics, as you so call them, are ruthless. There is a certain set of rules, however, and even the Council cannot wantonly break them. They hold their power through those very same rules.”

“Are you sure?” Anita blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Do you doubt me?”

“I didn’t mean that, Jean-Claude. Don’t turn this into some medieval ‘trust me and jump off the cliff, I promise I won’t miss when I’m trying to catch you’ thing. I just don’t like the idea of you and Belle Morte and all those other creepy bastards.”

His mouth quirked at that, and Anita had to admit it sounded pretty ridiculous. On the other hand, she didn’t see why vampires liked calling themselves pretty, fancy French names like “Death of Love.” Blame it on her American sensibilities. The logical part of her brain probably would be screaming “that’s the Queen of Nightmares, RUN!” even as the illogical part, probably more primitive, would stupidly wonder what badass, top ranked vampire in the world, could possibly introduce herself as Nightmares, Queen of Nightmares.  

“Come home soon,” Anita said, giving up on the whole Asher mystery. Maybe by the time Jean-Claude came home, the storm would be over. Asher was probably just annoyed that as second in command, he was forced to stay here while Jean-Claude went traipsing off into danger.    

“I will be back before you have missed me, _ma petite._ ” Come to think of it, didn’t they start getting, well, all _moody_ after the Council’s little invitation was delivered?

“All right then.” Anita pulled him down to kiss him, realized that she would miss him even for two days, and then felt somewhat ridiculous for it. God, it was awkward sending your boyfriend off to meet Death, Death, Nightmares, & Co.

She stood by Asher and watched as the private jet took off, lifting from the runway smoothly. It didn’t matter; she still hated planes. In fact, this one might actually deserve her hate, since it was taking Jean-Claude away from her.

“Well, that’s that,” she said, noting that Asher had his expressionless mask on again. “Why do I get a bad feeling about this again? Oh yeah, it’s just that every episode starring the Council means that our lives get progressively more screwed over.”

“They won’t harm him,” Asher stated. She couldn’t tell whether the reassurance was for himself or for her.

“They better not, or we’ll go and beat them up,” she said, but the attempt at humor only came out as a flat statement loaded with the promise of violence. For whatever reason, that seemed more effective in lifting Asher’s mood. They spent time in companionable silence on the way back to the Circus of the Damned, and when they got there they still entered Jean-Claude’s rooms out of habit. They seemed strangely empty without him present, but Anita sat down on the bed as usual and Asher followed suit.

“Now that Jean-Claude’s gone, I guess that means you’re interim Master of the City?”  

Golden hair slid over his shoulders as Asher gave a short nod, and she couldn’t resist touching it. Absentmindedly, Anita pulled and pushed him around until he was lying on his back with his head in her lap, hair spilling from her lap to almost reach the floor. Just running her fingers through those silken waves felt incredible. “Asher?”

“Yes…?” Her lap was warm and soft, her scent was intoxicating, and he was male. The desire she read in his eyes made warmth steal through her body and she knew that thinking wasn’t high on his list of priorities right now. Anita decided that she could try to use it to her advantage.

“What’s up with you and Jean-Claude? You didn’t even go over to say goodbye to him today.”

She could feel the tension that quivered through Asher’s body for the moment before he forced himself to relax, and knew that she had destroyed his contentment. Anita felt a moment’s regret for bringing it up. But this was only more proof that there _was_ something wrong between them.

“There is nothing up between us, _ma cherie_.” It was as good as saying that he didn’t want to talk about it. She debated pursuing it, but a twinge of fear kept her from entering dangerous waters. She had tried, after all; she had the feeling that prying something out of Asher would be twice as difficult as getting something out of Jean-Claude, and she hadn’t even succeeded with the latter.

“Well, as long as you’re sure. Just make sure to tell me, if there _is_ something, before some inconvenient moment like when we’re about to end up dead.”

For answer, Asher sat up in a blur of motion and managed to tumble her onto the bed, so skillfully that she started laughing. He leaned down over her, arms on either side of her, trapping her beneath him, and Anita’s amusement died away as her breath caught in her throat. His hand touched her cheek, thumb sliding over her lower lip, and over the sudden pounding of her heart, she heard the slightest sound, a husky whisper of her name, as if he had spoken inadvertently. Anita looked up into his face and was struck again by how godlike he was in his beauty. There were no words to describe how she felt knowing that he was hers, hers and Jean-Claude’s.

She could smell Jean-Claude’s cologne on the sheets and even though Anita knew he was becoming farther away every moment, it was as if he were still here, because Asher was here. Love washed over her and because it was Asher, for once she wasn’t afraid, and for once she allowed herself the pleasure of it, pure and unconditional.  

Asher’s gaze burned her with its intensity and she was frozen until, in one crowded moment, she found herself lost in overwhelming sensation: his mouth descending on hers, hot and soft, his cool, beautiful hair cascading over his shoulder to caress her cheek and neck.    

Her eyes had fluttered shut, but when she opened them again it was to see the look on his face, so raw and desperately tender, somehow as lost as she felt. Even now, he was afraid that one day she would wake up and reject him, reject Jean-Claude, to throw away their love. There was a degree of caution in his eyes that told her that he guarded his love for her and Jean-Claude carefully, because long ago Asher had learned that hearts were fragile things, so easily broken, and sometimes impossible to make whole again.

She wanted to take away that shadow of pain so she caught at his wrist when he would have left. She drew him back to her, arms slipping up around his neck, and kissed him back.  

*           *           *

A/N: I know the beginning doesn’t have much, but how do you guys like it so far? **Please review**! Thanks!


	2. FALL

Elysian Dreams

February 11, 2006

Disclaimer: This story is written purely for the enjoyment of the fans. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No copyright infringement is intended.

*          *          *

**F A L L**

*          *          *

It had been a very long time since he had come home to France. It was always a sort of shock to see how it had changed in his absence; he saw France uniquely, through a veil richly embroidered by memories. Humans, with the brevity of mortal lives, knew of kings and wars through paintings, movies, and history. No doubt a historian might give a more accurate description of events or analyze the causes and effects of the French Revolution with an objectivity derived from time. Jean-Claude had the peculiar vividness of memory and it was not the kind of mortal forgetfulness, but a vampire’s eternity.

He walked down the streets of the City of Light feeling as if he were a stranger, but at the same time, it was a homecoming. The street signs were modern, yet their names had not changed. Once, back when they had first met each other, he had kissed Asher in this dark alley after a night of careful seduction. Once, he had been so desperate for Asher to look at him with more than mere lust. They had been so hesitant to admit to love, jaded by Belle Morte’s depraved court.  

Here he had lingered, hidden by shadow, watching the aristocracy pass in bejeweled gowns and powdered wigs as he waited for Asher to return to him after a rendezvous with the young duchess, a famed beauty. Had he first realized the depth of his emotions here, after spending hours tormented by unreasoning jealousy?  

There were so many tourists here, Jean-Claude thought, with a wistful kind of anger. Paris had been at once both glorified and tarnished by its accessibility. The old backdrop of romance that had captivated the world for so long had been rendered trite, like an overdramatic love story. He spotted two extremely attractive women, tall and slender, with an aura of sameness to their beauty, and knew that they must be models. They had probably just finished the Christian Dior runway. One caught his eye and drew closer, clearly believing that he was one of them.    

He felt her presence behind him, confident and distinctive, and knew who it was before he turned around. Belle had always favored her, although she was too soft to equal the likes of Musette. It would certainly be foolish to underestimate her for it, as many had found out—it was a pity they would always hate each other. Jean-Claude turned to face her.  

“Lovely Iolanthe, come to escort me to the Council?” He studied her blatantly, knowing she would like the attention and yet resent the subtle insult. Her name was quite appropriate; Belle Morte herself had turned her, and in the process her eyes had become a strange shade of violet that didn’t exist in the natural world. Jean-Claude wondered if anyone remembered her original name. Tonight, her dress left her shoulders bare, and the curve of her neck was sensually graceful, suggestive of pleasures past and yet to come.  

                                                                                                                         

She gave him a kiss of greeting before he could resist and deliberately grazed his lip with the razor sharp tip of her teeth, tasting his blood. It was a slur on his status as a _sourdre de sang_ but Jean-Claude acknowledged her little revenge. As she stepped back, she smiled, and he knew that already the games had begun.

They walked together for a while without speaking, every step a remembrance. No doubt she was testing him in some way, ready to report on his mood. Jean-Claude had once found the delicate and dangerous maneuverings of the vampires exciting, much as one might have been fascinated by the power struggles of the princes of Italy, which had inspired Machiavelli. Now he found them slightly tiresome and wondered whether he had lost his skill, having enjoyed America for too long. A black limousine finally pulled up alongside them and they entered.          

In the dark interior, Iolanthe put her hand on his chest, eyes glittering amethyst. “A _sourdre de sang_ , Jean-Claude? You have always been the best of us all at the dance of intrigues. I have heard that you have replaced her—what was her name, Juliette?—with a human servant, and that our darling Asher is still with you. Tell me, how did you make him forgive you for succeeding where I could not?”

She moved to straddle him, the fabric of her dress slippery against his pants, but it was anger that burned in her eyes more than lust, and Jean-Claude knew that even after so many years, Iolanthe had still thought that she would gain Asher’s attention, would still win in the end. “You thought he would fall into your arms after I left?”

Her laughter was scornful. “Why would I give him the pleasure of my embrace? He is ruined. Belle only tolerated his presence because you had bargained for it, when you begged her to save him.”

“I read the lie in your eyes, Iolanthe. Even now, you want him…but he is mine.” He had the dark satisfaction of seeing his words hit her hard; moments later, her face became the blank mask that they had all learned to use, those who have spent time in a vampire’s court. She was still on him and he leaned forward, forcing her to sit back to avoid contact. Fury blazed in her eyes and power rose between them—she had become a Master Vampire before he had made the change himself.

“You have fallen low, Jean-Claude, if you would take that monster to your bed,” she said to him in a whisper.

He slapped her nearly hard enough to break her neck and she slid off his thighs, falling to the floor of the still smoothly moving limousine. It had been a calculated cruelty on her part, but she had overestimated his tolerance.

Iolanthe recovered smoothly and moved to sit facing him, reclining against the cushion. From there she watched him, but there was a degree of caution in her eyes now, and she was silent for some time while he ignored her. “Pity, you should have brought Asher with you,” she said finally, a small smile playing about her lips.

Her words sounded like a challenge and Jean-Claude’s mind raced to analyze it, because he was certain it extended beyond something as simple as Iolanthe’s desire for Asher. She had been confident all evening, from the moment she had met him—she knew something, probably some scheme of Belle Morte’s, and that was bad news.

“And is there any reason why I should have?”

“He might have enjoyed all that we have arranged for you. Belle has gone to some trouble to welcome home her favorite.”

“Oh? I was under the impression that this would be a simple introduction to the Council—though I am sure they know me already, of course.”

“Of course,” she echoed, a hint of laughter in her voice. “Well, I am sure you will be pleased.”

Somehow, he doubted that very much. Jean-Claude sensed Belle Morte’s plans closing in around him like a well-laid trap and knew that struggling would not be enough to escape. He had not survived this long without learning her games well, however—perhaps he could finally equal her, tonight.  

*           *           *

_There once was a human girl._

She was young and very beautiful, but not born to aristocracy, in a time when such things were of utmost importance. She was the maid to the Princess Anne-Marie, Mademoiselle de Valois, whose illustrious father was Duke of Orléans, Valois, and Montpensier, among others. So she knew of kings and princesses, but was not one herself, but it did not matter. She thought herself in love with a man, one that might have been descended from the gods that the ancient Greeks had so worshipped, because his hair was pure gold, and his eyes were the color of an otherworldly pale blue fire. He was tender towards her, and when he kissed her, she thought that she could die and not care.

He had a lover already and Julianna had always known that they were something more than human, because it was impossible that they could be so utterly beautiful. And because he loved this Jean-Claude, dark to his light, she found herself a little in love with him as well. She could not be jealous, for who was she, to deserve such attention from these two immortals?

She loved selflessly and unconditionally, and his visits grew more and more frequent until the night he first showed her love. She cried because out of all the people in the world, he had chosen her. She was supposed to have been destined for a life of drudgery, but he took her away.

_Vampires_. She had heard legends, as a child, and had even told some stories herself, when she was older, because Anne-Marie liked ghost stories before bedtime. Julianna was practical of necessity, for she was not a high-born lady, subject to fainting fits and unnamable illnesses. She did not believe in spirits and the supernatural, but she accepted his story without a single moment of disbelief.

He was Asher, there was only one like him in all the world, and she did not care what he was, only that he loved her. So he brought her to meet Belle Morte and Julianna had trembled before her, left hand clasped tightly in Jean-Claude’s, right hand in Asher’s. She was only a human, in the dark court of creatures who haunted the night and drank blood, to the death if it be their whim.

“Take me,” she whispered sometimes at night, knowing that he held back, fearing to corrupt her. “Make me your servant. I want _forever_ , Asher.” But he would not take her humanity.  

Jean-Claude had explained to her, once, why. “You would die if he did,” he said simply, and she had stilled, putting down the cloth she had been embroidering.

“And if I should die first? Would he die, as well?”

He had not replied, but she had seen the answer in his face, and from that day on had never asked Asher again to make her his human servant. Julianna had seen the other vampires of Belle Morte’s court and had known how ruthless they were. She would be a liability, a weakness when Asher could not afford one.

Then Iolanthe had come back to Belle, because she was about to become a Master, and Belle Morte had always favored her. It was Iolanthe of the sidelong glances and violet eyes, the subject of many poems, who became madly obsessed with Asher, though it had taken Julianna nearly half a year to find out. Both Jean-Claude and Asher concealed it well from her.

She remembered the pain that had ripped through her when she had seen Asher locked in a passionate kiss with Iolanthe, his hands pushing lace off shoulders to bare them, drawing her tight against his aroused body. Iolanthe’s power was rooted in seduction, much like Asher’s, and his power had responded to hers in recognition and mutual need. Because of this, Iolanthe believed that Asher was destined for her.    

When Asher had abandoned her to find Julianna, Iolanthe had decided that his inattention to her was due to one pesky little mortal, that brown-haired and brown-eyed girl, previously some maid. So plain, in comparison to Iolanthe’s exotic looks, so powerless, in contrast to Iolanthe’s power, which should be united with Asher’s.

There was no law against murder in Belle Morte’s court. There was one against a vampire, certainly, against a human servant, the same—though both were ultimately enforced according to the whim of Belle Morte herself. But there was no law against the taking of a mere mortal life. Julianna was not Asher’s human servant, she was only a mistress, and Iolanthe tired of waiting for Asher to tire of her. She was young yet, it would take some years before she grew old, and all this time Asher could be _hers_ , rather than this nameless girl’s lover. Juliette, wasn’t she? Then she could die as Juliette died!

She waited patiently with a dagger. Iolanthe was quite slender in an age before it had become very fashionable, but she was imbued with the strength and speed of vampires; she could overwhelm the girl in moments. Perhaps she would drink her blood, and Asher would taste the creature that had so diverted his attention on her lips, when she kissed him.

It was unsuccessful. She had not counted on Jean-Claude being present as well. Iolanthe fumed as he held her down, forcing her to drop the dagger as that girl cowered away, hand pressed to her neck where blood pumped from a shallow gash. Too shallow; she would recover, damn her. In the end, Jean-Claude had no choice but to release her, and Iolanthe spent the night besides Belle Morte, nursing her wounded pride and lamenting Asher’s indifference.

She whispered in Belle’s ear of the girl that would take her two favorites, Jean-Claude and Asher, away from her. Iolanthe had many skills and she knew the strength of jealousy, especially in one such as Belle Morte. If it had galled her that Asher preferred his little mortal to _her_ , then one could only imagine what Belle Morte felt, knowing that this twit of a human girl was drawing the attention of both Jean-Claude and Asher.                    

There was no rule against the slaying of a mortal, but there were penalties for attacks against human servants—because human servants shared the life of their vampire masters. Asher had had no choice but to mark Julianna, in order to protect her, although he had not wanted her to give up her human mortality for the unnatural existence of the vampires.

The next day, Belle Morte called the three of them in front of her dark throne and found out, to her rage, that she was too late. Julianna was Asher’s human servant. By the laws of the Council itself, she could not harm her. She had lost Asher, and somehow with him, Jean-Claude as well.  

Iolanthe changed from favored to a favorite and Belle Morte began to think of an arrangement that would result in the human girl’s death, without implicating her as the murderer. _Les lieutenants_ were to answer to her and her alone. Their position was entirely dependent on her pleasure.  

Asher gave Julianna a golden necklace to wear, with a locket containing his miniature portrait on one side and Jean-Claude’s on the other. It covered up the faint, pale scar that Iolanthe’s attack had left. He and Jean-Claude would walk the dangerous, narrow of serving their mistress, Belle Morte, and yet giving their hearts away to another for safekeeping.

Together, they had everything they needed. Asher, Julianna, Jean-Claude: an unbreakable triangle, the strongest configuration in architecture. They had twenty years of love and comfort, almost as if they were a sort of family, and Belle Morte seemed far away, and Iolanthe was forgotten.

But _they_ did not forget.

_There once was a human girl, who became more than human, but less than vampire._

*           *           *

 

He was tense, mind far away to where Jean-Claude was no doubt in France, where he might even now be meeting the Council. For the thousandth time that night, Asher regretted their cold farewell with all his heart. He knew how easily a vampire could perish, a cosmic irony since they enjoyed so many superhuman powers. Theirs was a dark world, though, and there were some things that even Anita, who thought herself so experienced in all that was corrupt, could not begin to dream of—some tortures, some masterful, complicated plots. And he had let Jean-Claude walk away from him and into that kind of danger, without a single word to soften the impasse between them.

Now Asher sought to distract himself, but all he could think about was what a fool he had been, so caught up in his own pain that he had cruelly hurt Jean-Claude. He knew that the other vampire had blamed himself for Julianna’s death, but had not realized to what extent—and Asher had merely thrown salt in wounds that were never healed.

He was in Jean-Claude’s rooms, Anita having gone home, and the place seemed cold and somehow lifeless. Sitting on the bed, he thought that it was somewhat comforting to have these lingering traces of Jean-Claude around him, but at the same time it only made the absence so much more marked. Deciding he could not bear to stay in this place until Jean-Claude came home, Asher strode purposefully to the door and opened it, intending to seek out company. He knew that Damien was at the Circus tonight.  

A dozen white roses lay on the floor, water droplets artfully arranged on the petals. Seeing them sent a sharp pang through his heart and for a moment he did not want to pick them up. Even having parted so painfully, Jean-Claude had still thought to send these for him, a mute gesture of understanding and love, when it had been Asher who had been cruel, Asher who should have been apologizing.

He finally leaned down to take them, guilt tearing at him, until the small envelope hidden in the flowers fell out and Asher all of a sudden was brought back to alertness. The writing on the front that spelled out his name in blood-red ink wasn’t familiar. The letters were too precise and it was most definitely not in Jean-Claude’s hand.  

Disappointment flooded him for a moment, but a prickling sense of unease prompted him to pick up the card. Roses in his arms, Asher ducked back into Jean-Claude’s room, where he dumped the flowers on the table and opened the envelope, drawing out a folded sheet of the kind of expensive parchment not usually found in use these days.

If not Jean-Claude, then who? He smoothed it out impatiently, seeing only his name. There was nothing else, no writing on it whatsoever, as if the person had only wanted to ensure that Asher would not mistakenly attribute the roses to Jean-Claude, as he indeed had, at first.

Asher had participated in too many vampire power struggles to dismiss this as simple coincidence. Jean-Claude would only be gone for two days—nights, rather—and his absence created a perfect opportunity for those who might want to take over the city. There were none here that might present a challenge; Asher was fairly confident of that. He had not sensed the arrival of any vampire into St. Louis, but if the unknown flower sender were a truly powerful Master Vampire, cloaking his or her presence would be a simple matter.

He looked at the white roses still lying on the table, angry that he had been so caught up in his thoughts of Jean-Claude that he had jumped to conclusions. Wouldn’t it be just like Belle’s machinations, if a strong vampire suddenly arrived while Jean-Claude was conveniently away? After all, if Belle Morte had decided that she could not have Jean-Claude, then she might decide that no one should have him—it would be like her to try to have him killed, _sourdre de sang_ or not. If he died, it would be proof he wasn’t worthy of the position anyway.

The thought sent a chill through him, and Asher suddenly saw everything very clearly, as if he had been doused with icy water. He knew full well that Belle was vicious when it came to securing her power base. If she believed that one day Jean-Claude might grow to challenge her power—after all, he was nearly her protégé—then she might take this opportunity to turn against him. If she had chosen a powerful master, she would seem to be innocent should St. Louis be suddenly taken…because she would be with the Council in France, of course, with Jean-Claude. Those dearest to Jean-Claude would be taken down, in particular his human servant, which would lead to Jean-Claude’s death. And even if her enlisted ally failed and died in the attempt, no one would ever learn of the association.  

It would be a subterfuge worthy of Belle, indeed—and it would have to be pulled off in the next 48 hours. The roses were only a prelude, a warning. Asher felt time marching on, as inexorable as fate, and wondered how much time he had lost already, agonizing over Jean-Claude.

Jean-Claude was in danger, at Belle’s court, but the Council had always been a danger and that was nothing new. Asher trusted him to be able to take care of himself. After all, if anyone could match Belle, it would be Jean-Claude, provided that a little luck was on their side. No, that was not his main concern, though the thought of it certainly made fear grip his heart. But what was Jean-Claude’s weakness? Whose death would ensure his own?

Asher rushed out the door, never more thankful that he had special talent at flying. He should have known, immediately, and now it could be too late.    

Anita would be the first target.

  

*           *           *

Generally Nathaniel brought in the mail, just as he took care of all the domestic things at home. If it were left to Anita, who knew how much mail might have piled up before the mailman came knocking? Micah brought it in sometimes, when he had just come home and had stopped by the mailbox. It was one of those mundane things that no one ever thought about. Most of the time it was junk mail anyway.

More out of a vague feeling of guilt that she hadn’t paid enough attention to her home than out of anything else, Anita actually checked the mailbox when she got home from the Circus. Entering, she was struck by the quiet of the place—Damien was at the Circus, Micah hadn’t come home yet from whatever emergency had sprung up, and Nathaniel was working at Guilty Pleasures tonight. The house was nearly unnervingly silent; she was so used to it being full of life, and tonight Anita really wanted the companionship. She wanted for Nathaniel to be a warm, silky presence at her back, for Micah to hold her and reassure her that Jean-Claude was going to be fine.

It was almost ridiculous. He would only be gone for two days. _Two days with the Council_ , an inner voice persistently reminded her, and Anita tossed the mail down on the table in frustration, and then watched as the envelopes flew everywhere. With a sigh, she debated leaving the mess there, but no, she couldn’t walk away from the clutter. She slowly began picking up everything, until she saw an odd envelope.

It had no postage and no address, but her name was written clearly on the front, each letter very clean and exact. The oddest thing was that it was written in blood-colored ink. Feeling partly disgusted and expecting it to be some kind of prank, Anita surrendered to her curiosity and opened it.

_Dear my love, Asher waits in the Circus of the Damned…for you. Won’t you go see him when he most needs you?_  

It wasn’t from Asher, that was certain, but this was a rather stupid prank, all in all. ‘Dear my love,’ indeed. She had just come from the Circus, did they really think she was about to turn around and drive back there on the basis of some letter that was, oooh, ahhh, written in red ink? But…why would they mention Asher, and why the stuff about how he needed her?

Feeling slightly ridiculous, Anita picked up the phone anyway and called the Circus, just to check. This really wasn’t the day for her to be getting things like this, with Jean-Claude away. As the phone rang, she wondered if Nathaniel regularly found things like this in the mail and filtered it out with all the other advertisements. Come to think about it, she hadn’t even touched the mail in months.

“Hello?”

She was surprised to hear his voice. “Damien? Since when do you pick up the phone in Jean-Claude’s room?”

He didn’t sound embarrassed at all. “I was looking for Asher and I found him here, but he left in a hurry. There are white roses here, though. Maybe it has something to do with Jean-Claude…” He left the rest delicately unsaid, but everyone had felt the coolness that had sprung up between the Master of the City and his second.

“He left in a hurry?”

“Yes.” Damien sounded puzzled by the note of alarm in Anita’s voice. “I think he was looking for you, actually. There’s a card here, do you want me to read it?”

Anita hesitated; it might be something personal, if it was from Jean-Claude. Especially in light of the unspoken war going on between her two vampires. She had a bad feeling about all this, though. “What does it say?”

Damien sounded even more unsure. “I don’t recognize the writing here. It’s too neat to be Jean-Claude’s hand.”

_Neat_. Like the note she had gotten. Anita swallowed, controlling her rising panic with an effort. “Damien, is the ink red? Dark red, like blood?”

“Yes, but there’s no writing on the card, Anita. Just Asher’s name, on the outside of the envelope, and inside on a piece of parchment,” came Damien’s puzzled answer.

“And Asher left after he saw the card?”

“Yes,” Damien confirmed, increasing Anita’s fears. It was too bizarre, unless Asher had recognized the handwriting, or had recognized something about the roses and the ink that she and Damien hadn’t. It was possible that they were trademarks of some vampire that Asher had known…and Asher might have gone to meet this vampire or unknown identity.

_Won’t you go see him when he most needs you?_  

Anita hesitated, and then decided it couldn’t hurt to be too safe. Not with Jean-Claude away. “I’m coming over,” she told Damien. “Stay at the door of the Circus, and if you see Asher, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. There’s something odd going on. Be careful.” She hung up without a goodbye and fished out her keys from her purse, reflecting that whoever had sent the notes had accomplished what they had wanted after all—she was heading right back to the Circus. She only hoped that Asher was all right.

She was about halfway to the Circus when something dark and caped descended on the road, right in front of her car. Anita slammed on the brakes, hearing them squeal. Her headlights partially illuminated the figure ahead of her, but it wasn’t until he turned towards her that she got a good look at his face.

Messy shoulder-length black hair, eyes that seemed black, set in a face and body that looked like it belonged to some kind of underwear model. His torso was bare and gleamed golden, like the rest of him. Anita’s senses screamed _powerful Master Vampire, over a thousand years old_ , and she reached for the Browning, feeling its reassuring weight. The only problem was, it would do little good against a vampire. No holy water bullets, she had known that she should’ve taken Edward’s when he had offered them, but no, she was too stubborn…

Behind him, another body lighted down, and Anita could have sworn that she saw the shape of out-of-proportion bird wings against the moon. The new arrival looked like a young girl, face innocent and fresh, skin absurdly pale—not even in the way that those of European descent might be called pale, but an almost solid _white_ —with black hair that fluttered away from her face. Thin black ribbons bound her legs, as if she was a ballerina, and the same were on her arms as well. Her dress was pure black, and flowed gracefully as she advanced towards Anita.

She didn’t bother to think, she simply pulled the trigger, aiming for the male first. The bullet smashed through her windshield and tore cleanly through him, and he didn’t bother to stop. He was less than a foot away from her car now, Anita shattered her window as she shot him again, seized by pure terror - _oh my god, he’s so close -_      

Her cross flared to life, he ripped it away and its glow faded when it hit the ground.

No, she wouldn’t be losing her head like this, not even with two Master Vampires coming relentlessly towards her. Fear—he was injecting it into her, trying to overwhelm her. She beat back his power with her own, feeling the utter futility of it when the girl added hers to his and broke through Anita’s shield as if it were a toy.

It was too late anyway. His hand reached through the window and seized her Browning, tossing it away. Anita struggled to think, she still had her knives on her, and she could still do something. Before she could do anything, he had opened the door and she was stumbling to her feet in front of him. The girl stared at her with dispassionate eyes, lips pouting, as if bored.

“Anita Blake, such a pleasure to meet you,” came the stranger’s voice, high class and British. Her name almost sounded out of place with the rest of his words. His hand gripped her wrist tightly like a vise, while the girl methodically took away her knives. She mentally tried pushing back, pure fear overriding her mind again, and he forced her to stillness.

“Who are you?” she managed to gasp out.

“I am known as Corbin. She is Lisette, my love.” His eyes glittered like onyx and Anita looked and looked, unable to break free of his gaze. It hadn’t happened for so long, she had become too confident with the immunity that Jean-Claude and her own powers had given her, and now here was a vampire that shattered all her defenses and simply overpowered her. Just like in the old days, before she’d joined the monsters instead of fighting them. All she could think of was that the name was French, but his accent was purely British.        

“I would kill you now, but you would be such a delightful guest, I’m sure, and I have always been fond of Asher’s entertainments… You know, I knew him from older days, he and Jean-Claude both. They could not be matched.”

Lisette took a length of black cloth and gagged her; Anita had not even thought to scream. His power came from her fear, or perhaps her fear came from his power, it was hard to tell. She cringed away from those bone-white hands, but they were as unemotional as Lisette’s eyes. She dropped a loving kiss on her partner’s cheek when she was done, and stepped back to admire her work.

Anita felt almost faint. Was she amplifying her lover’s power somehow? Something about Lisette was awfully, horribly wrong, even though she looked like a perfect little Gothic doll. It was as if she had some sort of aura that reflected back anything that was projected onto her—thoughts, feelings, and especially fears.  

Lisette spoke for the first time, all her adoration for her lover. Her voice was girlish, matching her appearance, but there was a certain implacable coldness. “Now what, Corbin?”

“We wait for Asher to come,” he replied, sliding his fingers through Anita’s curls nonchalantly. “Or perhaps we go meet him. What do you think, would it cause him more pain to see her right away, bound into submission and drunk on terror, or to find her wrecked car here and wonder what happened?”

“Let’s go to the Circus, love. I want to see what Jean-Claude has made of his home, that it could hold more appeal for him than the delights of France.” The laughter underlying the last few words made them somehow menacing, as if she referred to exquisite torture methods rather than ordinary entertainments.

“As you say, Lisette.” He ran his hand down Anita’s cheek and leaned close. She gasped as she felt his cool breath blow over her face, smelling of mint and sweetness.

It was the last thing she knew before utter darkness claimed her.    

*           *           *

 

A/N: The _Fugue_ image gallery is up at my profile. **Please review**!


	3. Resurrection

*This chapter was originally from March 19, 2006 and posted at Pomme de Sang and Sourdre de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams.*

Warning: I originally had this rated NC-17 because I wasn’t sure if it were possible to change ratings later. Up until now, the chapters have been on the PG level. With this chapter, this story is now officially NC-17 and contains slash.

Notes: If you haven’t realized by now, this idea of the past being interwoven with the present is a large part of the story, and as such, there are glimpses of the past where appropriate. Each, I suppose, could really be a short story in and of itself, but it’s the way that it all ties together that hopefully makes this story special.    

*          *          *

**R E S U R R E C T I O N**

*           *           *

_Once, the ardeur had ridden him hard, and Jean-Claude had thought himself depraved beyond redemption, more beast than vampire…but this was before he had walked down the halls of Belle Morte’s court._

He had quickly learned to appreciate the beauty of blood on the smooth black marble floors veined with gold. He had told Anita that Belle Morte was their God, their fountainhead, but that was only a poor description of how she had utterly invaded and taken over his life…no, both of their lives. Jean-Claude had not been there when Asher had first been made and they did not speak of his first years with her much, but in many ways Asher had always been Belle Morte’s, first and foremost.

Sometimes Jean-Claude thought that Asher must have been the kind of person that a human Belle Morte might have fallen in love with. Of course, it was dangerous folly to attribute humanity to Belle Morte, yet…every vampire had once been mortal, after all. She had loved them both, perhaps as much as she was able. Jean-Claude had taken her lessons more to heart, having some innate affinity for the Machiavellian politics, but nevertheless they had been hers, to use as she wished. Her lieutenants, givers and takers of pain and pleasure.  

There were stories and stories of Belle Morte, but no words, no matter how simple or complex, could truly describe her, nor impress upon the listener what it was like to be surrounded and consumed by her presence. It was a little like the first time he had fed on blood, or perhaps the first time the ardeur had risen… Yes, like the ardeur, that which was originally hers as well, a rare gift to her line.      

When he had first arrived at her court, Jean-Claude had been a miserable thing, dominated by the insatiable cravings of the ardeur and used as a plaything by Julien, his maker’s Master of the City. But his breathtaking beauty was his saving grace and it was this that finally brought Belle Morte’s attention to him, in the form of a golden-haired vampire so transcendent that Jean-Claude had been helplessly enthralled, utterly seduced without even the slightest exertion of Asher’s special powers.

Of course, Asher had hated him. Yet the mutual attraction was there all the same and when they touched each other, even the merest brush of skin over skin felt like fire. Perhaps, ironically, their first meeting was made even more intense by Asher’s hatred and Jean-Claude’s confusion. It was only much later that Jean-Claude understood that Asher had been afraid Belle Morte would replace him as one of her favored lieutenants. Jean-Claude’s own beauty, which so attracted the other vampire, was also the source of the potent and absolute hatred Asher harbored.            

He met Belle Morte for the first time with Asher at his back. Walking down long, shadowed halls, Jean-Claude felt a thrill of icy fear that had never been matched thus far in his existence. Asher was a cold and cruel presence slightly behind him, as if guiding him—or preventing his escape. The hall seemed endless, and in the shadows he could see writhing couples, pale skin bared and gleaming. Sounds torn from willing throats made him shudder, aching with need, and the _ardeur_ rose to nearly overwhelm him when it sensed that he could feed.

Jean-Claude clenched his teeth, filled with desperation from knowing that he had to maintain control over the insidious call of the _ardeur_. This was his only chance to escape Julien. No matter what he had heard of Belle Morte, surely she would not be as cruel as his Master of the City. What had he to lose? Treated like a beast, humiliated, starved and driven half-mad by the hunger of the _ardeur_ …until he would do anything, no matter how depraved, to satisfy it. Then, when reality returned later with the cooling of the _ardeur_ ’s fire, Jean-Claude would be forced to face the horror of what he had done. 

Asher’s hand burned where it rested casually on his hip. He focused on it, directing the _ardeur_ to something he knew he absolutely could not have, and was grateful for the existence of the vampire beside him, no matter how much Asher despised him.    

Then, at last, at the very end of the hall: the most beautiful woman he had ever seen draped languorously over a throne, wearing a blood-red gown of silk that left her shoulders bare. One hand stroked a leopard reclining at her feet, and to his horrified fascination, Jean-Claude saw that the other, in her lap, held the end of a metal chain. His eyes followed it to the vampire sprawled a few feet away, too still even for the undead, and Jean-Claude wondered if he would be like this too, if he did not please her. Had that vampire broken some rule, so that he would be punished – or did Belle Morte, _le_ _sourdre de sang_ and Council member, even need reasons to carry out her torture? Or did she consider it entertainment? His blood ran cold.        

“ _Kiss him_ ,” Belle whispered to Asher. Sensing the mixture of animosity and attraction between them, she knew full well what she was doing. After all, Asher was a being of seduction and Jean-Claude, an incubus—together they could be an intoxicating combination.

Asher indeed kissed him wildly, his mouth demanding surrender from Jean-Claude. It had began as a calculated move, for he was hoping to make Jean-Claude lose control of the _ardeur_ —surely the evidence of such poor control would disgust Belle—but in the end he gave into his own desire, unable to resist. Too late, Asher had realized that to play with the _ardeur_ was more dangerous that he had realized, for Jean-Claude had not Belle Morte’s control…

It washed over them both, brought them to a crumpled heap of tangled limbs in front of Belle Morte’s throne, her delighted laughing ringing out above them, and a kiss was not enough. It was not nearly enough, and Jean-Claude was mindless, uncaring of Belle Morte’s presence or of the watchful gazes of the vampires surrounding them, half-hidden in the dark halls with their columns of marble. He ripped apart Asher’s shirt with savage power, exposing perfection he had only dreamed of, and some small part of him that could still think was shocked that he would dare do this to _Asher_ …and even more shocked that Asher did not seem to mind at all.

Dimly Jean-Claude realized that this need was different somehow, more intense, more powerful, more demanding, and finally he realized why. It wasn’t only his _ardeur_ , but augmented by the force of Belle Morte’s, and she had perhaps planned this all along. They were simply her entertainment, her playthings, just as he had been Julien’s pet. Despair and anger rose up in him, clearing his head for a moment, and he met Asher’s blue gaze—black pupils drowned in icy blue.

 _I’m sorry_ , he mouthed helplessly, even as their hands slid smoothly over each other’s heated skin, and could not fathom why, because he had regretted the effects of the _ardeur_ before, but only for himself and never for his victims, as they might have been called. He only knew that Asher was different and that he did not want this—Jean-Claude would have given anything in that moment to be desired for his own sake, and not wanted simply because Asher was drawn under the _ardeur’s_ enchantment.

Unbidden memories flooded him, both bitter and useless, as Jean-Claude closed his eyes briefly. He had thought that this would be a chance to change. _You cannot rape the willing, Jean-Claude, can you?_ as Julien took him, so rough, pain and pleasure all rolled into one because his body was only a vessel for the _ardeur_ , and yes, it was so willing. Just as it was, now.  

He tasted that supple, golden skin of Asher’s stomach, delicately grazing flesh with teeth so that the muscles shifting under the skin quivered and tightened at the contact. Upwards, a long line to his chest. With the tip of his tongue, Jean-Claude licked the flat nipple until it peaked, laving it wet with saliva and then wickedly blowing cooler air over it, until Asher was making breathless sounds that made them both lose whatever self-control they had left. In a heartbeat, Asher had flipped them over so that Jean-Claude found himself pressed hard against the unyielding marble floor, its intense cold beneath his back, and he could only struggle weakly at the restraint, not truly a struggle at all, barely aware of Belle Morte’s smile.

Black cloth slipped from his hips and skilled fingers caressed the skin of his inner thighs, spreading his legs for an invitation that never needed to be sent. It was sudden, almost unexpected, but everything in Jean-Claude cried out in silent triumph as Asher entered his body with no preparation, pain blending with pleasure—and then his eyes had closed of their own volition, because Asher’s hand had encircled his length and was stroking it in rough, slick motions that matched the pounding rhythm they moved to. The killing dance, as never before, and above it all the intoxicating _ardeur_ feasted, drawing in the raw lust.

Belle Morte and her court watched the two of them, but Jean-Claude did not care. His muscles clenched hard, eliciting a hoarse moan from Asher as pleasure tunneled from inside out, flowing through them both. The golden-haired vampire leaned down blindly to join their mouths together before they broke apart again, and even through the haze of the _ardeur_ , something in Jean-Claude broke, because the kiss meant everything and it was the _ardeur_ that ironically gave him this gift of knowing.

And Asher didn’t stop there but kept going, drawing out their pleasure until all boundaries of sensation were lost and Jean-Claude felt consumed, but for once not by the _ardeur_ , his own or Belle’s—consumed by Asher. They were of a heritage that could cause pleasure like none other, and take it, too. Sometime, at some point, he knew he had begged, knew that the words spilled from his lips heedlessly.

“Asher…please...” There was no answer, but Jean-Claude might have heard it anyway. Asher’s voice, with a different edge this time, and not the silken cruelty as it had been, but full of his own need. _Please…you beg so prettily, but for what? What do you truly want, Jean-Claude? Please…finish it? Please…don’t stop?_

Belle’s delighted laugh rang out again and this time, Jean-Claude heard it. Everything had come to a point of clarity as sharp and brilliant as a knife’s tip, and in a moment of pleasure that approached pain, he erupted into Asher’s hand, coating his fingers with hot and sticky fluid. His whole body seemed to spasm with release, his mind a blank slate as pleasure assaulted his senses. The sudden vise-like movement of his body was accompanied by Asher’s cry, his shoulders shuddering beneath Jean-Claude’s hands. Then there was a rush of liquid heat spilling into him as Asher’s hips drove forward, his muscles tense as he lost all control—his back arching, his head thrown back to reveal the flawless angles of his face, his eyes closed against the overwhelming sensations as he came hard within Jean-Claude. Beautiful, beautiful—all of it, the moan spilling from Jean-Claude’s own lips, the slide of skin against skin, the shining gold of Asher’s veil of hair as his head was lowered to Jean-Claude’s, until their foreheads were touching as each tried desperately to regain some equilibrium…  

It wasn’t until the aftermath, with Asher almost angrily tossing a cloak over his shivering, naked form—the shivering not precisely from cold, for vampires were resilient—and making no attempt to move away, that Jean-Claude realized that something had changed, subtly and unexpectedly. Asher’s arm tightened around his body and although the _ardeur_ was satiated, he drew Jean-Claude closer and kissed him again, consciously, in front of the whole court.

Marked, but Jean-Claude didn’t realize it then, only melted under the demand that he felt from the pressure of Asher’s burning lips. This wasn’t seduction, it was surrender, but with pleasure more intense than he had ever experienced before still reverberating through his body, he did not care. Asher claimed him without a word ever spoken.

Many years later, Asher would tell him that he had looked so terrifyingly vulnerable in those few moments afterward, dark blue eyes wide with apprehension, and perhaps even that stronger emotion, fear. Of course he had been vulnerable. He had thought that Asher would forever despise him, when secretly Jean-Claude’s own feelings had run deeply for the vampire in just those few days as Asher brought him to Belle Morte’s court. The _ardeur_ , too, uncontrolled and clearly surpassing Asher’s defense… _You cannot rape the willing, Jean-Claude_ …but in this world, everyone turned willing, and yet everyone was not… Asher had every reason to hate him.

But that was not the way things worked out.  

Belle Morte had loved Jean-Claude, in the end, and had in fact been delighted that Asher had taken to Jean-Claude as well. She liked the contrast they made, dark and light. She liked Jean-Claude’s _ardeur_ as well, finding it amusing to teach him to control and enhance its effects, for it all served to increase her own power in the end. Asher had had nothing to fear; he wasn’t about to be replaced. There was always room for one more in Belle Morte’s gallery.  

They were both her favorites, but beyond that, they had each other. Because that was what had changed there as Jean-Claude met Belle for the first time: Asher had told him, with that pivotal kiss—more meaningful than anything Jean-Claude had ever shared with a lover—that he was under his protection, and that he would choose him, rather than Belle Morte. Neither had really understood that sudden shift then, or even the decision Asher had made. It had taken much more time for them to admit to even affection for each other. Lust was easy, after all, and in the jaded vampire court of Belle Morte, love was something near impossible to believe.

Whenever Jean-Claude wondered when he had begun to fall in love with Asher, he always thought back to that moment. Meeting Belle Morte had redefined his life, but that instinctive flare of protective anger which had prompted Asher to shield Jean-Claude from Belle More and her vampires…that had defined _them_.    

Once, Jean-Claude had walked down the marble halls of a deadly court of beauty, love, and death, expecting to meet Belle Morte at the end of it. But he had found Asher instead.

*           *           *

Jean-Claude stepped out of the limousine and into the chill air, knowing he would greet the Council soon in this most current location of Belle Morte’s court. The only sign of his trepidation was his carefully neutral face. Still, it was expected that he would don his court mask; the unreadable expression was both used by aristocrats of the European courts and the dark courts of the undead, but it had been the vampires who had perfected it. Belle’s court would not be far from Paris, Jean-Claude knew, perhaps around Versailles.

Iolanthe pressed close to him and he offered her his arm as was expected, his attention not really focused on her. She had tried to engage him again, in conversation as well as other less innocuous things, but remembering her tactics earlier in the evening brought back his anger, and Jean-Claude did not want to be distracted from this meeting with the Council. All of his hard won and honed skills would be put to use tonight. He had no time for lesser problems like Iolanthe.    

Jason and the others had arrived separately under strictly negotiated circumstances. After all, Belle intended to keep the exact location of her court a secret, though naturally the same rule did not apply to Jean-Claude himself. It would be a _faux pas_ indeed, if she demanded that he arrived blindfolded or with any of the other precautions taken with his companions.

“Be calm, be quiet, and do not draw their attention to you,” he had told them. It was not exactly profound advice, but applicable and useful. One could not prepare much for a meeting with the Council in any case. Now, as Iolanthe led him to the lions’ den, he assessed his entourage quickly.

He had never been very close with Meng Die. She had sought him out a long time ago, and he had agreed to turn her, admiring her persistence and dedication. Eternal youth, immortality – the combination certainly appealed the Eastern side of the world as well as the Western. Apparently, death was not too high a price. He was glad she was with him now; she was a Master Vampire, powerful enough to be willing to accompany him on this trip. She probably had some ulterior motives as well. Meng Die was nothing if not practical, and meeting the Council, provided one left the meeting alive and relatively unharmed, could be a long step towards fulfilling one’s ambitions.

But above all, Jean-Claude knew without a doubt that she was loyal. She had always been distant, almost with an attitude of aloofness, but in the vampire’s world of fluid alliances, Jean-Claude valued her loyalty very highly indeed. After all, it was a quality was very special for a vampire. Meng Die did not entirely like him, but it was nothing personal, and affection was not essential for loyalty. He had made her at her request and she had never tried to turn against him, as so many ultimately did against their makers. As even _he_ did, against Belle.

He did not pretend that the source of her loyalty was any empathy for him, but in a way that was better. In the game of kings and thrones, there were no permanent alliances, only permanent interests. Likewise for himself and Meng Die, affections changed, but ambitions rarely did. Meng Die was intelligent and she knew that Jean-Claude as his own _sourdre de sang_ benefited her position, as well.  

Jason and Faust both presented a brave front, and Jean-Claude gave Jason an appreciative smile. The werewolf knew that this trip would not necessarily be an easy one for him but understood the importance of his role. There were much stronger vampires than Faust as well, but Jean-Claude had not wanted to take one of the newer vampires with him. No, most of the London vampires had ties to Belle Morte already and Faust, while perhaps not the most deadly, was functional, practical, and loyal. Many of the London vampires had chosen to take sanctuary with him rather than with Belle, which had not pleased her, and it would be best not to remind her of it. Power was not the point of tonight’s game unless he had misunderstood drastically and Jean-Claude had never done so yet.    

Jean-Claude opened the link to his wolves slightly, feeling the familiar warmth of the pack wash over him through Jason, infusing them both with that potent, raw energy. He needed to appear strong and having the power to call on his wolves over such a great distance was an advantage that he could flaunt, because it was hardly a hidden power. He had known Belle Morte for a long, long time. However, he was not naïve enough to think that he had seen her at her most terrible. On the contrary, having a secret weapon was crucial, else Belle Morte could not have retained her Council seat for so long, and defeated so many challengers who had seemed to outwardly equal or surpass her in power. With Anita, they had discovered one such power—her ability to invade others’ minds and insidiously bend them, entirely unsuspectingly, to her will. That in itself was deadly, and there was no way to tell what other skills she had hidden.

Like Iolanthe, Belle gave him a kiss of greeting, purposefully letting the _ardeur_ burn in the soft brush of her lips against his cheek. He was not sure if she would prove to be an ally or enemy tonight, so he responded with a slight smile of acknowledgement.

“Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude,” she murmured in mock disappointment, wearing the smile of a cat licking stolen cream from its whiskers. “Is that how you would end our long separation?”

Her lips were crimson with the old kind of rouge and Jean-Claude knew she had mixed in fresh blood with the minerals. She kissed him full on the lips, the tangling of their tongues throwing him back hundreds of years as memories filled his mind. The _ardeur_ burned between them and when she drew back, she looked at with an expression of mingled pride and possession.

It was not a look that one gave to one’s equals, but _sourdre de sang_ or otherwise, Jean-Claude knew that he would always be her creature in some ways, even if the blood ties had been cut. Belle Morte sought to remind him of it, but he could not yet tell if she meant for him to lie in her bed of silk or that of broken glass. There was too much history in the performance of that kiss, that art which the French vampires had perfected.

The next few hours went well, neither more nor less than what Jean-Claude had expected. But since this was the Council, the very fact that everything seemed so planned, nearly routine, kept him in uncomfortable suspense. Not all were present; the Queen of Nightmares would hardly bother herself with a mere _sourdre de sang_ , doubtlessly preferring to leave him to the lesser Council members. Even so, his rise in power was an event certainly rare enough to warrant the Council’s attention. Jean-Claude did not think that they would do anything so soon, but at the same time he could not help wonder if a nasty surprise was waiting for him when they dismissed him without anything…interesting…happening.

Life with the Council was never calm, unless one counted the kind of calm used to describe the stillness of deep waters where dangerous creatures lurked. Tonight was merely a test, however. Oh, they could be pretending to honor him because of his unexpected change in status, but Jean-Claude was under no misconceptions. Complicated plots lurked behind satisfied smiles and sudden assassinations formed in the jeweled colors of eyes that could glow with power.

If all went well, at the end of tomorrow night he would be back in St. Louis, celebrating with Anita and Asher and the rest of the wereleopards and vampires. Perhaps even with the wolves, although his relationship with Richard probably could be permanently described as being tenuous at best. The thought brought a smile to his lips before he remembered how he had left Asher.

Well—a telephone call would not nearly begin to heal the damage, but it was better than nothing, and Jean-Claude was dearly sorry that they had not spoken before he had left on this hazardous trip. Just as they were about to pass through the doors of the medieval-styled audience chamber, Jason tensed behind him, giving him some forewarning.

A moment later, Jean-Claude froze at the sound of Belle Morte’s voice, drifting over to his ears almost lazily.

“Jean-Claude, I hope you enjoy the small token I have selected for you as a welcome home gift.”

“Oh? Belle, seeing you again was pleasure enough,” he replied smoothly, automatically. Inside, something tugged at his memory. It sounded too familiar.    

“I have missed your sweet mouth, Jean-Claude. How to both give and receive pleasure is something you have learned well from me, have you not?” Her deadly laugh floated out and affected every single thing in the room, other Council members included. Jean-Claude felt a grim moment of satisfaction at their masked irritation.

“I was taught only by the greatest,” he murmured back tritely. She had glided up to him and had replaced Iolanthe by his side as his escort out of the chamber. Iolanthe had stayed all along until then, probably on Belle’s orders. The pretty pout on violet-tinged lips was the only sign of her displeasure at being left behind now; Belle Morte liked Iolanthe well enough for her to get away with such minor displays.

Jean-Claude was glad that Belle’s arm on his sat lightly and did not burn with the _ardeur_ —the most visible and compelling symbol of the tie he still had with her, _le sourdre de sang_ to his own bloodline or not.  

“Yet you are excellent at sharing, as I recall. Give my regards to Asher; I hope he enjoys my trifle to you as well. I took great pains with it.”  

Belle Morte leaned closer to him for a brief moment, claiming his mouth for a kiss very different from the kiss of greeting that she had given him earlier, and when she finally released him, he was slightly overwhelmed despite himself. A small smile played on her lips and she made a slow movement, very angelic, that might have been called a curtsy if she had not been Belle Morte.

“Truly, Jean-Claude, you should enjoy your homeland while you are here. Come join us,” she offered.  

He suddenly knew why her comments sounded so familiar. They echoed Iolanthe’s words about how Belle had gone to some trouble to welcome home her favorite…and how Asher might have enjoyed it as well. What was it that Iolanthe had said? That she hoped Asher would have come as well. He had attributed the comment to Iolanthe’s particular interest in the golden-haired vampire, but now the remark seemed to take on more sinister significance.

What was this _gift_ that Belle spoke of?

“My companions—” he began belatedly, realizing that she was waiting for his reply, only to be interrupted.

“Bring your pretty American wolf with you, if you wish. You must introduce me to him, he has the most compelling eyes.” She glanced at Jason, who averted his eyes almost instinctively and was for once silent. Jean-Claude could only wonder how Jason’s brand of humor would go over to Belle Morte.

“As for the others, I believe this is their room,” she said, coming to a stop. Meng Die and Faust had a separate room to themselves, the assumption being that Jean-Claude would want to share with his _pomme de sang_. They obediently disappeared inside to settle in at her hand’s gesture, although it was well that they looked to Jean-Claude first for confirmation that their presence was no longer needed. He knew Belle Morte appreciated such things.

What better judge of control and power than as reflected in one’s inferiors? She would find it strange to know that Jean-Claude did not necessarily treat them as such in St. Louis. The aristocratic mindset was much more prevalent in Europe still, especially in the vampire society, if what they had could be called that.   He spared a moment to hope that the Council’s unusual civility tonight had not gone to Faust and Meng Die’s heads, but comforted himself with the thought that they had at least experienced Musette before.

“Shall we, then?” he said at last, aware that Belle Morte was still waiting for an answer. “Lead on.” No doubt to her or the Council’s idea of a banquet of blood, for it was customary to offer such things to honored guests, after all.

He turned to catch Jason’s gaze for a moment, trying to look reassuring. Jason had not been so willing to come, after all, though he had said nothing about it. Jean-Claude had needed no such verbal cues to know, however, or to guess at the reason. Morte D’Amour sat on the Council and had been present today. He was the head of the line of rotting vampires, Jason’s personal nightmare.    

As if he had read Jean-Claude’s mind, Jason flashed a grin, although it didn’t have quite the same bright quality as it usually had. But when Jean-Claude turned back to the petite but terrifying vampire on his arm, the werewolf followed uneasily, having caught the scent of something through the closed door to his and Jean-Claude’s intended room. With Belle Morte between himself and Jean-Claude, however, he would not have an opportunity to discuss it…and the scent was very faint, probably left over from some former occupant, anyway.

First, to get through whatever Belle had seen fit to put on for them.  

*           *           *

The house was deserted, a rarity that Asher could not truly remember having occurred before. There was always someone at the house—a wereleopard, or some other preternatural, usually in the middle of some crisis. He saw the letter immediately, with its red ink, and the pieces clicked perfectly, all that he had originally worried about coming together. Without a doubt, Anita had headed to the Circus, summoned by the underlying threat in those words, just as he had rushed to her house, both to miss each other.  

It was a common tactic to use on prey. Confuse, separate, and kill. Vampires took those basic strategies to a new level. Asher cursed to himself softly but vehemently; he should have seen this coming. In fact, if things had been all right between himself and Jean-Claude, they might have anticipated and planned for this the night before Jean-Claude left, or at least discussed the possibility of this kind of attack. Once again, he had let the past endanger the future. So caught up in the anniversary of Julianna’s death, he had pushed away Jean-Claude, when they had needed each other most.

With mounting urgency, Asher sped back towards the Circus, following the highway, ever grateful for his particular talent in gliding through the night. There weren’t many cars this time of night, so Anita should be relatively easy to find.

Except, when he indeed found her car some time later, Anita was not in it. The window on the driver’s side was smashed in. Surely she couldn’t have been overtaken that easily, not Anita. But he could detect no signs of a struggle, which indicated a vampire strong enough to take her mind, despite Jean-Claude’s marks on her and her own considerable powers of necromancy.

Briefly he debated, and then realized that the most obvious place for a rendezvous would be at the Circus, as originally stated in the note. He could not simply go charging in there, but Asher could see no other choice. If Anita truly had been overpowered so easily and without warning—Jean-Claude was gone, but Richard, of course, was not—then she might be in too much danger to risk the time it would take to locate and combine the wereleopards or any other allies, like Raphael’s rats.

If only Richard were a little more _reasonable_ … Anger washed over Asher at the thought of the recalcitrant Ulfric. It wasn’t fair exactly to call him unreasonable, but sometimes he felt as if the werewolf operated on a different reality than the rest of them—them being the ‘monsters’ that Richard despised—and doing things like that could get one killed very easily. When would Richard see that his actions would one day end with the death of someone he loved?

He didn’t have much choice after all. Asher realized now that she should have never had been without guards, but it was too late now to stand and debate what they should and should not have been prepared for. Walking into the Circus of the Damned would be walking straight into a trap. Almost certainly, he would be overpowered. Their enemy knew each of them well, along with their strengths and weaknesses, but as of yet he could not even put name to the vampire threatening Jean-Claude’s power…and his life. Surely whoever the vampire was must have realized the advantage of having one of the triumvirate within grasp.

All he needed was time, Asher grimly thought to himself as he headed back to the Circus. Jean-Claude would be back in another night. If he could even hold off death or outright fighting for the next forty-eight hours, then they still had a chance. If someone wanted them dead, well, there were more complex games afoot than a simple challenge to the Master of the City. Belle Morte was almost certainly involved, and if that was the case, it meant that Jean-Claude was in danger too.

*           *           *

 

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Jason said to him when they could finally breathe again, Belle Morte having graciously departed.

Jean-Claude’s rich laugh was like brushed velvet. “Are you so eager for me to bite you, wolf?”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Jason said in a deliberately seductive voice, enjoying himself. “Hungry?” Jean-Claude had told Jason beforehand that it was highly likely for Belle Morte to set a vampire to watch them all through their visit. Probably not within hearing distance during moments of supposed privacy, because Jean-Claude would notice and that would be a major embarrassment to all, but certainly close enough when they were in public areas to report back to Belle. So why not give them a show?

“For you, always.” Jean-Claude wondered what Belle Morte would make of his apparent affection for his _pomme de sang_ , but concluded regretfully that she would consider Jason beneath her notice. No, Belle was above such petty jealousies, but certainly not when it came to, say, Asher. Not if Asher and Jean-Claude had each other _without_ her.            

Still, it was good to hear Jason back to something like his normal self, and the night had not gone badly at all. Belle Morte’s idea of amusement had thankfully not included anything to do with rot, vampire or otherwise. Instead, she had acted the gracious hostess, showing Jean-Claude and Jason around her court. They had not stopped at any of the large banquet rooms, although Jason had swallowed nervously at the sight of some of the delicacies being served—mortals and a few shapechangers, all exceptional and chosen for their appeal. Vampires liked beautiful food. Valentina and Bartolomé had been young, but there were many more, although nearly all human.        

Beauty was Belle Morte’s specialty and her court was an accurate reflection of her tastes and personality. They went out into a garden where the night-blooming flowers were ghostly and pale, perfectly reflected in the moonlight, their exotic perfume more than making up for the lack of color. White oleander, with the scent of almonds, but poison all the same. Of course, there were also the wild roses. Belle Morte had her perfume specially distilled from them.  

“What did Belle mean when she said she left you a gift?” Jason asked as they made their way to the rooms they had been given, dropping the pretense in favor of something serious. He had seemed slightly shocked by how different the vampires here were, as compared to the ones he knew in St. Louis. Maybe more appreciative of how _soft_ Jean-Claude actually was in policing the vampires as Master of the City.

The werewolf stopped to stare at a marble sculpture of Apollo incestuously intertwined with his twin, Artemis. The artist, some long-dead mortal, had masterfully brought out the contrasts and unified them in a whole – night and day, sun and moon, healer and hunter. Rather like Jean-Claude and Asher. It was a breathtaking piece and Jean-Claude nearly laughed at Jason’s awe.    

He had forgotten that his _pomme de sang_ was American through and through, not used to the centuries old treasures that still existed in Europe. Swords once held by kings and generals, beds where princes were born, heavy gold jewelry that the Sun King himself had given to Belle. The vampires had long mingled with the aristocracy and it was the humans who had admired and imitated the glittering vampires courts, not the other way around, especially in France.

“Jean-Claude?” Jason prompted after a moment, perusal of the statues over, causing the vampire to be further amused at his expense. After all, impatience was something not often found in vampires, who held all of eternity. Indeed, it was one of the characteristics of Anita that annoyed and amused him the most.          

“I do not know, _mon loup_ ,” he said finally, sobering. He let a trace of his apprehension show because this was Jason. “Belle’s gifts, you may imagine, can be blessing or curse…it very much depends on her whim, her mood, her intention.”

“Do you think it’s something of Asher’s again? Like the portrait Musette brought.” Coming from Jason, it was almost tactful, but Jean-Claude still did not need to be reminded of that particular ‘gift.’ He remembered, too, the cold parting between himself and Asher.

“I doubt it. Belle is usually more creative in her gifts. I have received many from her before, and I have never found any to be quite what I expected.”

“She kept on mentioning Asher, though,” Jason mused. “And the vampires that brought us here, too. They haven’t forgotten him.”

Jean-Claude frowned at that, his anxiety increasing. “You have noticed it too?”

“You and Asher were her favorites, but I’m sure other people fought for your attention, right?” Jason’s tone was teasing, but his serious eyes told a different story. “I mean, I’ve never seen so many beautiful people all in one place, but you guys are still a step above everyone else.”

“My thanks for your compliment,” Jean-Claude replied dryly to that, but he still turned over Jason’s comment in his mind. He walked faster, so that Jason followed, wanting the privacy of their room to discuss this.

“Besides, Asher left the court pissed and eager to kill you, but it’s probably common news that things have changed. I’m sure they were curious as to how the famous couple made up.”

“We are _vampires_ , Jason. This is not Hollywood.”

“Yeah, but only because you guys don’t look the way you do as a result of plastic surgery.” At Jean-Claude’s raised eyebrow, Jason only shrugged. “Anyway, do you think this ‘gift’ business might be related to some kind of envy? Iolanthe…she liked Asher before, didn’t she?”

“ _Oui_. But we will not know about Belle’s gift until she chooses to present it to us.”

“Jean-Claude, I think…” Jason hesitated, looking at the indiscreet walls, but the vampire’s look urged him to continue. “There was the faint scent of…something, I don’t know what. I was going to tell you earlier, but Belle Morte was with us, and that would’ve defeated the purpose anyway, right?” His usual humoresque quips were gone, and Jean-Claude found that he actually missed them.

It was just as well that he had spoken, because they finally stopped before the chambers that Belle Morte had designated for their use. There was something there, just as Jason had said. Both felt it.        

“We will find out soon enough.” He opened the door and walked in, eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness, but there was a candle burning on the table anyway. Jean-Claude immediately sensed the presence of another vampire within the room, someone perhaps only a century old, not a Master, but not entirely weak.

A low growl came from Jason behind him, the werewolf’s preternaturally sharp senses obviously noting the living…or at least vampiric…presence in their room.

It wasn’t until she turned around, candlelight lovingly flickering over slender curve of neck, that recognition slammed into him, as powerful as a physical blow. The face, those luminous eyes…the single flickering flame highlighting gold out of the deep sable of gently waving hair. She was dressed in a gown of the old French style that had been in vogue just before the horrible events leading to their ruin, as if she had stepped out of that very last painting of them together, one that Anita had never seen, as it had been burned.  

“Julianna?”

*           *           *

 

Notes: Now edited, with a huge, huge **thank you** to my beta, Triscut. Image gallery up at my author’s bio.

Part of a message posted by **Hell** on a French forum discussing CS. I thought it was very interesting:

 _Il est vrai qu'Asher est parfois à la limite du pénible mais faut dire qu'Anita est parfois trop "prude" surtout pour nous européens qui n'avons pas vraiment les mêmes valeurs à ce niveau là._ _[…]_ _Un peu décousu comme tome, pleins d'idées sont lancées mais peu aboutissent. Quand au problème des mots en français employés : "sourdre de sang" m'a fait grincé les dents._  
  
Le mot "sourdre" existe bien mais il ne s'emploie que très peu et a fonction de verbe : jaillir, sortir de terre en parlant de l'eau. En tant que figure de style : naître, commencer à se développer. Je vois l'idée de Laurell par rapport à l'indépendance qu'acquiert JC en devenant son propre maître mais la phrase est mal construite et dans le contexte ne veut pas dire grand chose. Elle aurait dû s'en tenir au basique "source de sang"... Voilà c'était mon petit cours de linguistique...

 **Translation** (Note: I took Spanish, not French, so I tried to do my best here):

_It is true that Asher sometimes is too characterized as “the painful one” but it is necessary to point out that Anita is sometimes too "prudish," especially to we Europeans that do not really have the same values to that level. […] A little disconnected as a book, a lot of ideas are launched but with little result.   As to the problem with the words in French: “sourdre de sang” made me grit my teeth._

_The word "to rise" [sourdre] exists but can be rarely used as a verb: to gush, to go out of earth while talking about water. It is in a figurative style: to be born, begin developing. I see Laurell’s idea in the comparison that JC obtains independence by becoming his own master but the sentence is poorly constructed and in context does not want to say the great thing. She should have kept the basic "blood source"...[source de sang] Here it was my little linguistics course..._

Yeah, this whole improper French thing has been bugging me for a while. I’m not French in any way, but still, I know there are huge inaccuracies in the ABVH books.

Anyway, **please review** if you liked this! Thanks!


	4. Rendezvous

Previously posted at Pomme de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams. April 8, 2006  

Disclaimer: This story is written purely for the enjoyment of the fans. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No copyright infringement is intended.

Note: Bach’s “The Art of the Fugue”: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXQY2dS1Srk> and translations are at the end, but can be inferred from the context.

*           *           *

 

**R E N D E Z V O U S**

 

*           *           *

_Once, as a child, Jean-Claude had been bought to be the whipping boy._

Though not completely impoverished, Jean-Claude’s parents had been mere peasants with many hungry children and had not missed the chance when the minor lord and lady had taken an interest in their beautiful and precocious child. They had, after all, received a considerable sum, and had been given assurances that Jean-Claude himself would benefit as well, raised alongside a lord’s son.

Although Jean-Claude might have resented his parents for their seemingly easy abandonment of him, he had only hazy memories of those early years with them, and the lord had kept his promise. Jean-Claude had grown up as Sébastien’s constant companion, with all the benefits of the future lord’s private tutors in everything from swordplay to etiquette. He was well fed and well clothed. Sometimes he wondered if he had brothers and sisters he had never met, or he wondered what his life would have been like had the lord never seen him playing outside his parent’s simple home, with its dirt floors and thatched roof, and decided to offer for him. But that life receded from him and his memory as surely as he had grown up.

It was only the beatings that reminded him that, despite all outward appearances of equality, he was only the whipping boy for one who would later inherit the estate and title. To be fair, Baz had tried hard to limit his troublemaking nature for his friend’s sake, but that was only much later, when they had matured enough and had actually became friends. Sébastien was not a bad person, but like other spoiled young boys his age and station, he had been wild.

The lessons, which left scars that Jean-Claude would carry all of his life, even as a vampire, had not impressed Sébastien overly much for any period of time. But eventually the relationship between the lord’s son and the whipping boy evolved into something complex and unique, for they had both come to genuinely care about each other. At the same time, Jean-Claude could not forget that it was Sébastien who had brought him pain.

After all, the beatings had been brutal and the wounds severe, in a way such that Jean-Claude knew that Anita, so thoroughly modern in her upbringing, would never have realized. He could not remember how many times he had crawled back into bed beside Baz, the other boy’s eyes gleaming with unshed tears in the candlelight and full of stricken remorse, which would only increase when he saw the extent of Jean-Claude’s injuries. Then, they would not speak to each other, sometimes for as long as the injuries lasted, though every night Baz would silently come over to where he lay facedown on his pallet on the floor. With gentle hands, the other boy would spread the salve that would help Jean-Claude heal cleanly, both boys biting their lips when Jean-Claude involuntarily twitched from pain.  

 _“Je ne voulais pas te blesser,”_ he would whisper, and Jean-Claude would lie quiet and unspeaking, tears coming to his eyes as Baz’s hands, however gentle, disturbed the raw wounds left by the whip. Maybe that was the worst part in the later years, knowing that Baz meant it truly—that he would have never done anything to hurt Jean-Claude, at least intentionally. The informal nature of the address itself spoke volumes.

“ _Je suis dèsolé_ …” He never asked for Jean-Claude to forgive him, but between them, it was enough. Some things were better left unsaid.

To each other they were as close as brothers. To all others, Jean-Claude occupied a particular place in the complex hierarchy at the manor, a place he had never been allowed to forget, although Baz often did. It was worse yet because he attracted attention wherever he went, not simply because he was intelligent beyond his years, but also because of his beauty.    

Sometimes Jean-Claude thought it was that paradoxical mixture of love and hate that had strengthened him, so that later he would be more understanding of the vampire court and its ways. From such an early age, he had understood that few things were purely black and white, and that inside of every hate lay a little love, and that the things one feared might also be things one admired.

In the end, he had learned much about himself, and knew especially that, when pushed to it, he would willingly sacrifice himself in order to save those that he loved from harm. His past as a whipping boy might have taught him to care for himself first and foremost, and yet somehow the opposite had happened. Jean-Claude had never shared this secret inner self-knowledge, a weakness certain to be exploited by the vampires, with anyone.

So Asher’s mocking words, words meant to hurt, had cut more deeply than even the golden-haired vampire realized. That he could believe that Jean-Claude had deliberately stayed out of danger while Julianna died and Asher writhed under the drip of holy water…that knowledge was a searing pain that had made its way straight to Jean-Claude’s carefully guarded heart.    

_Once, he had entered the court of Belle Morte believing himself to be the whipping boy for Asher. But one day he would return to that very court and willingly offer himself as the price for Asher’s life._

 

*           *           *

 

The vampire that was Julianna turned to meet his gaze steadily even before Jean-Claude’s disbelieving whisper reached her. She seemed neither surprised at the vampire’s sudden flare of power nor at his manner of addressing her, but there was no sign of recognition in her eyes, only a wary alertness.

Jean-Claude advanced into the room despite Jason’s quick verbal warning, all his attention fixed on the lovely figure before him. Up close, he took in the details of her bronze colored gown with its demure but low-cut bodice and gold lacing, discovering with unpleasant shock that she was indeed wearing the very same gown that Julianna had been wearing in their last portrait together. _Impossible_. But Jean-Claude’s vampire memory was clear, and the candlelight illuminating those dark, liquid eyes could not lie. The delicate oval of her face with its widow’s peak, the slight pout of her lips…it was Julianna, yet everything in Jean-Claude screamed that it could not be so.

“Julianna?” he asked again, a demand for answers in his voice. He was close enough to touch her now, and he kept his gaze fixed on her as if he could not look away. Jean-Claude reached out with a faintly trembling hand to take up a softly curled lock of her dark hair.

All of a sudden she was kneeling at his feet, taking his hands in hers, fear clear in her eyes. “No, I am not she. I am not Julianna, I can never be!”

The outburst was enough to shake Jean-Claude back into some semblance of sense. At his sharp gesture, Jason hastily moved to close and lock the door, and then crossed over to stand next to the two vampires. The stranger was visibly distraught and even her denial could not convince Jean-Claude that his eyes deceived him. Even her voice…it was rich, husky, like Julianna’s.

“Explain yourself,” Jean-Claude said, striving for an even tone.

“I am Belle Morte’s gift to you. Surely you understand the nature of her gifts…you have known her long, far longer than I! She wanted me to fool you, to say that I was your beloved, but we both knew that it would be a deception that could not last for long. So I tell you now, I am not Julianna.”

“You say you are Belle Morte’s creature,” he responded bitingly, his hands tightening enough to nearly crush her fingers. He only loosened his grip at her stifled protest. “Did she make you?”

“Yes. You can read the truth of my words.” He had grasped her by the wrists now, and she trembled, all poise shattered beneath his anger. “Please, Jean-Claude! I never wanted to be a part of this.”

“Tell me, who are you?” He was thinking again now that the initial shock had subsided, and Jean-Claude could see slight differences, compared to the memories that he had forced himself to lock away for years. She could have passed for Julianna’s twin, but even identical twins could be distinguished by those who knew them well.  

Her voice quivered and she made a pretty picture, kneeling before him in a pool of bronze fabric, her pale face upturned to his. Her eyes were tear-filled, but Jean-Claude knew that her tears would be tainted with blood. She was not his Julianna, not this vampire. He told himself that and knew it rationally, knew that the Julianna he had loved and lost had died more than two centuries ago, and could never have been a vampire. But it was hard to look at her and see that she was terrified of him, all the same.

“I was born three centuries ago and my mother saw fit to call me Julianna, after her sister, who had left the family when she was a child. So young, my face had only intrigued Belle, but the name – she wanted another Julianna to torture, you see? She could never touch the actual Julianna, because she was a human servant, and the laws of the Council protected human servants. So she took out all those years of hate on _me._ ”

“I see,” Jean-Claude said in a tight, harsh voice. “The resemblance?”

“Pure chance,” she said in a voice so low it might have been inaudible to human ears. But none of them in the room were so afflicted, and Jean-Claude knew that she was lying. It tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Answer me!” His hands gripped her wrists harder and she cried out, trying to wrench away. Tears spilled from her dark eyes and glittered like jewels upon her cheeks; in the dim light of the room the reddish tinge could not be seen.  

“Julianna – my mother’s sister,” she gasped. “When I was born, they all said that it was an ill-luck name that my mother had bestowed upon me, the name of a witch. But my mother loved her sister dearly despite the accusations and even though she had felt betrayed when her sister deserted the family. Her sister, Julianna… Can you not understand? _Your_ Julianna!”

“So Belle found you and took you as a weapon to use against me. Against Asher.” Jean-Claude released her in a quick movement that threw her closer to the floor and she lay there unmoving in the midst of rich and costly fabric. But the tears had disappeared and she looked nearly defiant.

“It was not by my choice. Do you believe that I wished to be a creature damned by the Church? To live knowing that I was unnatural, that I must sustain myself on the blood of others – _mon Dieu_! I would rather have died, and I still wish for death, a hundred times over. Yet _she_ will never allow it.” Her voice was bitter. Jason tried to help her up but she refused his hand.  

“I cannot call you by your given name,” Jean-Claude said, as if uncaring of her torrent of words. “Is there any middle name, a family name?”

She shook her head in despair. “Belle Morte…it has been long, and she made me forget. But I hate my name as well. If not for the name my mother gave me, I would never have caught her attention.”

“What do you call yourself, then?”

Her voice was very soft. “My father called me his Juliette. Petite Julianna.”

It was too close to his beloved’s name for him to like and Jean-Claude remembered, with a flash of hate, how Iolanthe persisted in calling Julianna by the wrong name, Juliette. It was a name loaded with tragedy and history. But it was different, at least, so he merely nodded his acceptance. It was difficult still to look at her, so as he helped her up he averted his gaze. Jason looked on, torn between sympathy for the girl and for Jean-Claude.

Despite his instinctive reaction to put the blame on her, Jean-Claude knew that Juliette was as much Belle’s pawn and at her mercy as he himself had once been. It was not her fault that she had been used to mock him, and she had risked Belle’s wrath by not playing totally by her rules, either. She was brave beneath that fragile surface, enough to have presented herself directly to Jean-Claude without pretense or guile, although she must have feared that he would strike her down out of anger. She was Belle’s ‘gift,’ after all, and as such Jean-Claude might have been able to kill her with few repercussions.    

Julianna, too, had been brave. Jean-Claude’s heart twisted as he took another look at the young vampire that looked so much like a ghost from his past…and she had once been just a girl, too. She had Julianna’s blood flowing in her veins. The resemblance was uncanny and Jean-Claude wondered, not for the first time, the extent to which Belle’s particular powers could influence appearance. If her final bite of conversion could bestow beauty as rumored—as he had perhaps witnessed or even experienced himself, unknowingly—what might her attention to a child over so many years do? Perhaps she had enhanced Juliette’s natural likeness to something that was a near copy of Julianna.  

His anger rose in a forceful tide, but it was not directed towards Juliette. Belle Morte had manipulated so many lives to her own gain and pleasure, but he had never thought she would resort to something like this. No doubt she would expect him to be pleased with the thoughtfulness of her ‘gift,’ an immortal vampire to replace his long lost human lover. No wonder she had asked about Asher—she must have gloated so in secret, to think that Asher would face Julianna again and think that she was a vampire. That he would think, as Jean-Claude had done in the first few moments, that perhaps Julianna had been alive for all these years. Perhaps Julianna had miraculously lived, only to shun him, her killer rather than her savior.

Jason was giving him compassionate glances and the wolf was clearly concerned for Juliette as well. But as logical as Jean-Claude tried to be, he could not look dispassionately at Juliette, or even call her by name without thinking of the woman whose bones had long since turned to dust. Had either of them even known that Julianna had had a much younger sister, whom she had given up when she had decided to leave with her vampire lovers? A sister who had obviously cherished her?

“I am as much victim as you are to Belle’s machinations,” she said, not seeking to meet his gaze. “She made me endure watching the man I loved marry another, ensured that I knew exactly what human life had been stolen from me. She enjoyed inflicting pain on me – or giving me to other vampires who had hated Julianna. You see, you and Asher had had many admirers, who were jealous of the mortal who had stolen you both away.”

“They tortured _you_ because they could never have Julianna,” he murmured, understanding. He needed no great imagination to know that the various vampires could only have been very inventive in their torments for the person they most hated. He had experienced much of the same torture during his years of servitude.

“Yes,” she said, choking on a sob. “Because I _am_ Julianna, for all intents and purposes. A woman that I have never met, whom I know little of, except that she was dearly beloved by my mother, and by her two vampire lovers, who were glorious as night and day. So much I have suffered, for one I will never meet, one I have never met, and one I have just met today.”

There was nothing he could say to that and deep inside his heart, Jean-Claude hated himself for wanting to take her into his arms, to soothe away her tears. Her pain caused his, but was it merely empathy for a stranger or because of this tangled web, in which his heart was tricked into still believing she was someone she was not?

She saw the look in his eyes and gave a muffled cry of frustration. Jean-Claude silenced her with a look.

“You are not her,” he said simply, but could not help wish that she were.

  

*           *           *

 

The underground catacombs of the Circus were too quiet, seemingly deserted of any inhabitants, although Asher did not stop long to check for sure. Instead, he headed directly towards Jean-Claude’s rooms, knowing that the abductor would probably have taken Anita there. The local vampires had not been killed, he was sure – only overcome so that they could not aid the current Master. After all, it was in the perpetrators’ best interests to keep them alive, or else they might become Master of a City that had nothing.

He was not disappointed when he opened Jean-Claude’s door. He found Anita on the floor and bleeding profusely, although he could not tell where the wound was in the dim light. His senses had sharpened to the point of pain and the smell of her blood was heady, calling forth his darker instincts. He pushed them back. She was gagged and he moved quickly to her side to take it off, even though he was aware that most likely one vampire was keeping watch over her. Asher was sure that there were at least two involved in this plot, though probably no more. Two vampires working in tandem could do much, but the more powerful the vampire, the more solitary they tended to be, usually, unless one counted lackeys.

She gasped when he ripped the cloth from her mouth and looked her over for more wounds. The bleeding was the worst and she would lose consciousness soon if it continued unabated. Working silently while waiting for her to speak, Asher completed his examination. Grabbing a cloth from a nearby table, he quickly tore it into strips and tightly wrapped them around her arm and around the longer gash on her thigh to stem the flow of her blood. He could tell that she hadn’t struggled much against the vampires who had taken her, or else she would have sustained more physical injuries. Anita was one of the most powerful animators in the country and she called on several sources of power through her necromancy, Jean-Claude’s marks, the triumvirate, the pack, and her pard. The vampires must have been overwhelmingly powerful to take her so easily.

The other possibility was that they had very unique talents. Sheer power was not always the end game when it came to vampires. Collaboration could yield results that brought down the more powerful, which was precisely why Jean-Claude’s new position as _sourdre de sang_ had both increased his safety while making him a more appealing target. Power had conferred a certain absolute status to him, but he needed much more if he was going to keep it.

“Two vampires,” Anita told him, voice so hoarse he almost missed her words. “Lisette is waiting for you, she was checking on me.”

“Who is the other?” He had already moved to take her in his arms; with her thigh cut so deeply it would be faster if he carried her. But Asher hesitated, knowing that carrying Anita would also leave him unable to fight.  

She shook her head slightly as if already too disoriented. “He was so powerful…he uses fear. Overcame me before I even had a chance…” Her voice dropped off and her eyes closed.

“Anita!” He didn’t want to shake her, she was already too weak, but Asher had to know whom he was up against.  

“Can’t remember the name,” she moaned. He suspected that she had taken more of a battering than the two cuts would indicate. “Jean-Claude?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hating himself for sounding indecisive. “I think they are waiting for him to return. Whoever it is won’t kill us right away – you’re still here.” He didn’t tell her that she was obviously bait for the trap.

“But does he even know?”

“Jean-Claude will come, Anita.” Unvoiced went all the fears and doubts that Asher had already considered.

“He’s a sadist…so is she,” Anita whispered, her eyes still closed. Her forehead felt hot to touch, and Asher wondered with panic if she was strong enough to pull through without actual medical assistance. He had not been too worried when he had seen the cuts across her arm and on her thigh; although deep, they would heal. Yet she had suffered from blood loss and might have had other injuries not so readily found.

“Richard?” he asked, but rather hopelessly. Perhaps the werewolf would finally do something now that Anita was in so much danger. After all, his own life hung in the balance here as well.

“No,” she said weakly. “There’s something happening…I felt it through the marks. Someone challenging him, someone strong that he overlooked. He’s been neglecting the pack.”

Asher cursed. “We should have expected it. She must have planned this as well, knowing Jean-Claude’s ties to the wolves. The triumvirate is no secret. Who is the other vampire, Anita?” He gathered her close to his chest and rose to his feet.

She looked past his shoulder and he turned around almost on instinct, deciding in that instant that he would have to put Anita down in order to take care of the vampire first, if he could. Even his motion to do so distracted him. Her face whitened with pain when in his haste he put her down none too gently.

“Asher,” a voice from the shadows greeted him relatively calmly. The vampire that stepped out was petite and perfect in a way that reminded him of a porcelain doll. “Have you come to join your love?”

This one must be Lisette, then. She blatantly ran her eyes over him while Asher tried to plan a course of action. He had no doubt that he could take her alone, although they were probably matched in power, but she would alert her partner the minute she needed help.

As he watched, she turned her black eyes on Anita, gaze oddly hypnotic even though she was not directing her powers on him. To Asher’s alarm, Anita stared back at her as if faced with her worst nightmare. Tears had come to her eyes and streamed down her face, and when he started forward it was as if she could not even see that he was there.

Asher was stunned in a way that wasn’t entirely due to Lisette’s apparent power; it was so uncharacteristic to see Anita cry. It had been a long time since he had looked at her and seen the fragile human hidden underneath the tough reputation of the Executioner. He had greatly underestimated Lisette if the girlish vampire could do much to Anita with a simple look. Even as he swung his fist at Lisette, hoping to distract her, the vampire easily ducked away and moved out of his reach.

She watched Asher with a small smile and raised an elegant hand. “I am glad that we meet again, Asher.”

Her words told him that he should remember her and Asher searched his memory for her place in the many vampires that had come in and out of Belle Morte’s court. There was something familiar about her bone-white complexion and haunting look, but he could not remember, yet.

It was rare that a vampire had the power to cut at a distance, but Asher tensed when she held her hand palm up to him, expecting some other surprise. Instead, Lisette gave a light flick of her wrist as if shaking water from her hand, clearly using the motion to show that she was deliberately releasing her hold on Anita.

“Impressive,” Asher managed to say, although Anita had slumped to the floor, finally unconscious. It was probably better for her, if what he had seen of Lisette was any indication. He could not forget that there was an even bigger threat still waiting to be faced, although his sudden memory of Lisette gave him no clues as to why she was here now. When last they had met, she had had a reputation for being an unpredictable lone power, but that was long ago and she had probably met her match since then.

Asher spared a moment to glance down at Anita’s still form for a moment, wishing that she had not left him to dance alone with the devil – or as the case may well be, the devil’s mistress.

          

*           *           *

 

“Take me away with you,” Juliette pleaded. “When you leave to go back to St. Louis, take me with you. I know that Belle Morte gave me to you as a horrible parody of a gift, but please, do not return me to her! I would rather die.”

Jean-Claude stiffened at her words, moved by her pleas but unwilling to face the prospect of encountering this Julianna at the Circus of the Damned, or seeing her when he first woke from his sleep. And if it pained him this much, when he knew full well that Juliette had no ties to _their_ Julianna whatsoever, how could he subject Asher to Juliette’s presence? Even to help Juliette, he could not.

“I cannot let you stay with me, you understand that?” he said.

“Yes, but…anywhere, Jean-Claude, please!” She had tears in her eyes, and the image of her crying, like Julianna crying, made him cold.

“I have some contacts, in other cities in the United States. I will ensure that you meet with one of those Masters of the City, if I am able.”  

She threw herself at his feet and he took a step back, emotions teetering dangerously on an edge, but her tear-stained face, when it was upturned to him, was serious. “Give me your word that you will extend your protection to me.”

He hesitated, but there was something altruistic in her face, she wanted protection for herself because—perhaps she was preparing to betray Belle Morte? Jean-Claude had sensed that she knew more than she was telling them, but he did not take his vows lightly. “I swear to you, Juliette, I will do my best to protect you.”

Fresh tears made their way down her cheeks, and before he had known it, he had reached out to gently wipe them away with the back of his hand. “Jean-Claude, I—you understand, I could be killed. For telling you this.”

“What is it, Juliette?” The name felt strange to use, but he pushed away emotion in favor of alertness. There was something odd here, or else Belle Morte would not have chosen this moment to reveal a weapon she had held against him and Asher for over three centuries.

“While you are here, Belle has sent the vampire Corbin and his lover, Lisette, to your city. She plans for them to overpower your second, take the city, and kill your human servant—so you would be weakened, perhaps die, as well. She fears you, Jean-Claude, for what you might become.”

He grasped her shoulders, hauled her upright even as he sank down so that they were on the same level. “Juliette, what are you saying?”

“Jean-Claude, you _must_ go back to St. Louis, _now_ —don’t you see? She uses this opportunity to attack. I was only a further distraction, because she wanted to see you suffer before you died. Your human servant, your lover, they may already be captured—”

 

*           *           *

 

“Lisette,” Asher called, deliberately letting his voice caress her like silk, using his powers of seduction. Perhaps he was no incubus, as Jean-Claude was, and held no touch of the _ardeur_. But his was the gift of allure, of fascination. The rest did not matter, Asher was master in this element, and he had never used it as skillfully as he did tonight. There was an added edge to the velvet of his voice as he swept it over her, born of knowing that this game held stakes of life or death for both Anita and Jean-Claude. He’d long since given up the thought of the likely damage or possible death to himself.

The object of his desire recoiled just a bit and he could taste her fear, causing his predatory instincts to sharpen. So clumsy of her. She was a powerful Master in her own right and her lover’s ability was fear, so why hadn’t she learned anything? Lisette was pretty and petulant, yet not quite equipped with the usual cunning found in Belle’s line. Flawed, really, despite her power – she did not know how to use it, and could not play the game on Asher’s level. Perhaps if she had stayed in France, rather than leaving for the less dangerous London…things would be different. The old Master of the City, Dracula, had long been on the edge of sanity. More than likely, he left the games to those beneath him. Lisette, with the protection of others, perhaps her partner, would have had little chance to learn the more dangerous aspects of being a vampire, as she would have in other European courts.

She was a mirror, he understood. The coldness that seemed to emanate from her was psychological, not physical. With Corbin, she mirrored his projection of fear, amplifying it. She was as powerful as her opponent, but no more. It explained so much about why Anita had been overcome; her own power had been reflected against her. Lisette was cold, so very cold, because she was nothing but a blank slate, _tabula rasa_ , upon which other powers were written.

So he intended to turn her over to him, to snare her in his power until she was under his control, even if he lost himself in the process. If they were both caught in the pattern of power, endlessly resonating between them as it built force, Lisette would be unable to break free to help her male partner. He was no match for her and her partner, if her partner was her level or above. The most he could hope for was taking her down with him, to give Anita just a little chance to fight through the other vampire’s control of her fear. It all depended on how much she absorbed and how much she reflected.    

Now, Asher turned his seduction into a kind of sadism, using himself as both object of desire and monstrous horror. Over the years, he had long since learned to sense people’s responses to his scars. Always especially attuned to others’ feelings, Asher was even more so aware because he was sensitive to their curious gazes and revulsion – especially from those who had desired him before, before he had been scarred. Back when he had been considered whole, perfect, rival to few. Lisette was one of those.

He hated the fear in her eyes, the disgust, but persisted anyway, forcing himself to ignore her sickened response, which made all his own instincts and fears clamor forth, demanding that he turn away, hide. He ignored them. Slowly and carefully, he wove a intricate web of tangled desires, so her revulsion only fed into her longing for him – he had been out of her reach, Belle’s favorite and Jean-Claude’s lover, when she had truly seen him last.

It had been a long time ago, so long that Anita would have gotten that funny look on her face as she tried to figure out how many years had passed since then. It was one of the few cute expressions that Anita ever possessed and she would have hated to know that he had noticed it. Asher secretly cherished it, holding that scrap of vulnerability closely, knowing that most other vampires only saw the Executioner when they looked at her. Lisette had last met with him before even Julianna.    

He held onto that last thought, recalling his love for the extraordinary girl that had become Asher’s human servant and third in their _ménage a trois_ , but it was not enough. The tendrils of power he had created around her began to dissipate with his desperation. _No…Julianna…_ He turned to memories of Anita, and it bolstered his defenses. But what he truly needed, he refused to succumb to. _  
_

_Jean-Claude_. Theirs was a volatile relationship. Truth to tell, he was not certain that they could have lasted without Julianna, or at least there would have been more of lust and less of love in their relationship. Neither were very good communicators, but more than that, they had had the fear and distrust of each other bred into them by survival in Belle Morte’s court. Tender emotions were punished. It was Julianna with her innocent and honest love, with her girlish curiosity and delight in life, which had brought them together, surmounting misunderstandings and petty jealousies, cementing their love.  

Lisette was touching him now, raking blunt nails over scarred flesh, both eager and reluctant. Asher wondered how far she would go and whether her partner would intervene…or perhaps watch. He felt reviled, profane, and yet his body responded to the desire he was generating, the desire that caused her to react like this. No matter. As long as he bought time, that was all that mattered. Anything, everything could be forgiven, if one was alive. He thought back to the atrocities that he and Jean-Claude had witnessed, their voices silent no matter how furious they felt inside, and how many they themselves had committed.

Her mouth was hot and demanding on his. There was nothing cold about her now, only a consuming passion. He deliberately did not respond, but his power flared as it sensed a willing victim. From the corner of his eye he saw Anita slumped, still unconscious, on the floor. He noted that she was still bleeding sluggishly from her hastily bound wounds. He let his bloodlust rise at the thought of her sweet, hot blood. Lisette finally pulled away, loathing mingled with intense need, all reflected in her eyes. Her thin shoulders shook as she tried to bring herself under control.

He already knew that she was not working alone. She was not strong enough to have incapacitated all the vampires at the Circus and elsewhere in the city. Although Anita had not had the chance to tell him who her partner was, he knew it had to be someone of greater power, someone who could wield fear. It wasn’t until Asher felt the slash of fangs running along his shoulder and neck that he suddenly knew exactly whom it was that sought to take over St. Louis. He had always delighted in drawing the blood of other vampires.

Corbin, late of London – he who had been third to Dracula, the Master of the City that the Council had finally ordered to be assassinated. His second had of course taken over to be Master of the City, and London had seen no more problems under the watchful eyes of the Council. Corbin was close enough to power and some vampires would have been content to remain second. After all, he had been third for so long. But it was well known that the current Master and Corbin were rivals and not nearly friendly ones at that. A second who was not trusted by the Master was not a man of power, but merely a figurehead, and that would not have sat well with Corbin.

Naturally, he might see this as the perfect opportunity to rise in status, especially with Belle’s backing, for surely, Asher saw Belle Morte’s hand in all of this. Belle More had been furious that Jean-Claude had taken almost all of her line from the London Kiss, offering them sanctuary with him. Corbin was not of Belle’s line, so there would be no direct trace back, but of course, Lisette…not the same Lisette that had made Jean-Claude, of course, but one far older, and _she_ was indirectly of Belle Morte’s making. There weren’t supposed to be any overlaps in vampire names, but this was long ago enough that identities were not as they are today, and Lisette was a common enough name.

The vampires that Jean-Claude had taken in from London, Byron and Requiem among them, had carried stories of this Corbin. Asher did not know him well, although they had met before, but had certainly heard of his reputation. He could remember that Jean-Claude had once been given to Corbin, but that was during those days when his heart was filled with hate for his former lover and he had not paid any particular attention, besides noting with satisfaction that Corbin used his toy hard. Now, Asher’s heart sank at the thought of these two powerful vampires together. No wonder they had been confident that they could take St. Louis. They obviously thought Jean-Claude still the same vampire that had submitted to them long ago.

Whatever Asher had expected, it was not the sudden, sharp pain of Corbin’s fangs into his neck, or Lisette suddenly pressing close to him from the front, effectively trapping him between them.  

“Sweet blood,” Corbin purred, deliberately walking to face Asher and opening his mouth enough for Asher to see his tongue flick carefully over two sharply pointed fangs, almost like a cat. “I have heard much of you, Asher. I see the rumors are true. Lisette, love, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Mmh.” She was silent, sliding her hands over him, and Asher shuddered at her touch despite himself. He was no stranger to others’ desire, but something that was so twisted, as much a mixture as he was himself, monster and angel in one body…he hated it beyond anything else. Anita thought that he hid his face only because of the scars, but it was more than that. He hated the lust he could see in their faces, which changed to fear and disgust, but still undeniably remained when he was fully seen.      

“Surely you know what we plan to do, Asher, and wonder at the delay. But you live up to your legend. Half perfection, half destruction…what a work of art you are. Between Lisette and myself, we could truly appreciate your beauty, I think. So, Asher, what say you?” He moved closer to Asher as he spoke, the last words were uttered as his mouth hovered just above Asher’s still lips.

His kiss was different from Lisette’s and Asher felt a thrill of fear that he wasn’t sure was really a result of Corbin’s considerable powers. He had never been so vulnerable before, in front of a male, and though he resented it, he could not stop his body from responding, however traitorous it was. He held onto some measure of control with his power, spreading it like a cloak to envelop Corbin as well as Lisette, to draw them in.  

“Please,” he whispered, and then choked, horrified at his building desire. He nearly twisted to look at Anita’s limp form, wondering again if she were truly unconscious or merely pretending. The marks might have allowed her to heal enough by now, but it would have been better if she could have drawn on the power of the triumvirate. That was out of the question—Jean-Claude was too far away and Richard was busy with his challenger. It was all for the better that both Lisette and Corbin’s attention were fully on him.

The sound of his shirt tearing apart brought his own attention back to Lisette and Asher wondered if he could bear this price, to sell his body in this very different way, for time and for Anita and Jean-Claude’s lives. He had done it for both Anita and Jean-Claude before, and even perhaps enjoyed it in a way that was more bittersweet pain than true pleasure, but Narcissus had taken most of the harm, not himself.  

“Yes,” he said, eyelashes fluttering shut submissively, lashes long and golden half moons on his pale cheeks. Behind closed lids, he remembered Narcissus and shuddered, knowing the other vampires would like it.  

“Corbin, make me one of yours. Let my breath…become yours.” Asher spoke the words, not those of acceptance into Corbin’s Kiss, though similar enough. He would avoid taking vows unless as a last resort – this in itself was not precisely a betrayal, for his bond to Jean-Claude had not been destroyed. If not for Corbin’s arrogance in trying to control him, and his resultant inattention to details, Asher knew that his gambit would have fallen apart. As it was, he gave silent thanks that he had long been underestimated because of his specialized powers and because he lacked an animal to call.

When he opened his eyes, it was to meet Corbin’s, their brilliant shade of blue enthralling, imbued with power. All instincts of self-preservation rose to the front as he fought as Corbin tried to roll him. Asher pushed these away, forcing himself to resist only as much as expected, gradually succumbing so that Corbin indeed had gained a weak control over him. It was not nearly as much as the other vampire believed. Though vampires could read lies, it was not as straightforward a skill as one might assume, and they had had long centuries to develop skills in subterfuge.

It _was_ betrayal, though, and Asher spared a moment to wonder at Jean-Claude’s reaction when he and Anita returned, as surely they would. Would he have enough trust in Asher to see through his supposed allegiance to Corbin? Or…Asher shied away from the thought, but fear settled in his heart anyway. They had not trusted each other enough, else they would never have broken apart so bitterly after Julianna’s death. He would not have been consumed with hate, so certain that Jean-Claude had chosen to save himself at the expense of his lovers’ lives. While they had healed some of the misunderstanding since Asher had come to St. Louis, there had been an undercurrent of tension, not in the least from Anita’s reluctance for them to be together.      

 _Jean-Claude_ … Asher had even forsaken Belle Morte, however carefully they had done so, for him. If he could give Anita and Jean-Claude a greater chance for survival, then he would do whatever was necessary, no matter how painful.  

He had not forgotten that, should Anita die, Jean-Claude likely would as well. Yet this was not true for himself, so he would put everything into this last game, to convince even Anita that he had betrayed them. He could play that role if it kept her alive until Jean-Claude could return. He smiled at Lisette and invited her disgust, even while veiling his own pain underneath lashes of dark gold.                

 

*           *           *

 

He was filled with a profound fury at her revelation, born of the knowledge that thousands of miles lay between France and St. Louis. Though he might hurry there, it would still be hours before he arrived, and nothing, no matter how strong or powerful the vampire, could change that basic fact.

If only he would be assured that he would not be too late…with these thoughts in mind, Jean-Claude reached for his phone but was quickly stopped by a slender hand encircling his wrist. He followed the graceful line of arm to Juliette’s face; he stared at her, although he wanted to look away.

“Do you still seek to serve your mistress?” he said softly instead, a dangerous edge to the question as he carefully watched her.

She paled, but looked resolute. “I do this for no one but myself.”

“Then do not try to stop me. I have pledged to provide you safety to the best of my ability.”

Juliette shook her head, her hand tightening on his arm. Although she was strong, Jean-Claude could easily have overpowered her, yet did not.

“Jean-Claude,” she entreated, and said his name again when she realized his thoughts were far away. “You cannot go, not yet, unless you should wish the combined wrath of the Council to descend upon you for so public a slight as to refuse their rarely extended hospitality.”

Until now, his thoughts had been scattered and uncertain, as they rarely were. He had trained himself to think, study, and anticipate, and yet all sense had fled at the thought that all that he loved was in mortal danger. Juliette’s words only fed his growing anger, and he forced himself to stop thinking of the danger to them and to see the situation as an attack on himself, as no doubt it was intended.

“It is within my every right to defend my territory,” he argued, heat evident in his voice. Jason looked at him in surprise; the werewolf had rarely seen Jean-Claude exhibit less than perfect control, not even in most of the situations Anita got herself into. Juliette did not miss Jason’s expression, and pressed on although she clearly feared angering a vampire so much stronger than her.

“It will not appear so,” she said in response to Jean-Claude’s claim. “Although Belle Morte is deep in this intrigue, she leaves no trace of her association, and the rest of the Council is none the wiser. To prove otherwise will take much more than the word of one small and insignificant vampire. I am nothing, whereas Belle Morte is a Council member. You cannot risk the wrath of the others, if not Belle Morte herself.”

“You suggest that I leave my human servant to die, and Asher with her? The end may very well be the same – I would die with them.” _And Richard too_ , he was reminded, since the Ulfric was bound to the triumvirate.

Juliette opened her mouth to speak, but the next sound came unexpectedly from Jason. It was a measure of Jean-Claude’s inattention that until then, the vampire had all but forgotten about his _pomme de sang_ ’s presence.

“Whoever the Master Vampire is, I’m sure they will not kill Anita right away, not until they can show that they have truly beaten you, Jean-Claude. I don’t know how it works for the vampires, but in the pack, a leader which has won by surprise may find others unwilling to follow him.”

“The same for vampires,” Jean-Claude confirmed. “But the chance is too great to risk.”

“Trust Belle Morte’s choice if nothing else. She would have allied herself with one adept at such maneuverings,” Juliette pointed out.

“And if he kills them?”

“They would be dead if the Council took offense to you.” Juliette’s face was pleading, and Jean-Claude looked away, unable to bear the haunting similarity of her features to Julianna. “You have been away from them long and have gained powers, even becoming your own _sourdre de sang,_ but you think too much as an American now. Perhaps you have forgotten how ruthless they are, how easily it is to kill with impunity, especially for one that has a seat on the Council. Without a direct connection, your death would not even go avenged – it would merely be a routine upsetting of power in a fight to be the Master of the City. Belle has planned her gambit well and she will not speak for you as she might have done in the past…not when she aims to destroy you herself.”

She looked near tears again after this passionate speech, but Jean-Claude realized that she was correct in her conclusions, to some extent. Her words all rang true, but still he hesitated. As if someone else were speaking, he heard himself say, “So we wait.” It lacked firmness, as if he were still questioning, but Juliette gave a deep nod.

He closed his eyes in defeat and whispered. “Just a few more hours…” It would not be very long of a delay, compared to the time it would take for even the fastest flight back to St. Louis, and yet it could mean the difference between everything. If he thought Anita’s God would listen to him, he would even offer him a prayer for her life.

Looking into Juliette’s face a few minutes later, he couldn’t help but think of Julianna and wonder if perhaps Asher had been right in his accusations all along. Even now, was he hesitating…to save himself? Was he just using Juliette’s arguments to justify his hesitation, his delay? Although he was with the Council, it was Asher and Anita who were in more immediate danger. Asher’s accusations after Julianna had died echoed in his mind. The anniversary of her death was just a couple days past and the memory was still raw.

He had left Asher with cold silences, with pretended indifference. Would he never see him again? And Anita, if she should die, would he even care to continue his own bleak existence? Asher had lived through the death of his human servant—only because Jean-Claude had forced him to live, though the act earned him a hatred that lasted for centuries.

Juliette’s eyes met his unwaveringly, trying to tell him that he had made the right choice, but Jean-Claude wondered if they suffered far away while he was here, waiting on the vicious pleasures of the Council. It was as if the past was horribly reawakened. He had been called away to visit his mother while his lovers were in danger. Would he be forced into making the same kind of choice? It had led to the death of one he loved, and to perhaps permanent damage of the other.

There were only minutes until dawn…and then by nightfall he would make his leave of the Council. But by then, Jean-Claude knew with a cold certainty, it could be too late.

*           *           *

Translations:

 _Je ne voulais pas te blesser –_ I never meant to hurt you

 _Je suis dèsolé_ … _–_ I am sorry

A/N: Remember to check out the **Fugue** image gallery at my profile when you have a spare moment or two, and as always, **please review**. Your encouragement does wonders!


	5. Nurture

*This chapter is from June 18, 2006 and was originally posted at Pomme de Sang / Sourdre de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams.  All the author notes are also old and my apologies in advance for any ugly spacing.  I tried to clean up all the extra spacing as best as I could, but the HTML <p> tags aren't consistent from chapter to chapter so it's harder to do a find & replace on some than others, even though they're all from Word docs.*

*           *           *

**N U R T U R E**

*           *           *

_Once, Jean-Claude had sacrificed himself for Asher—out of duty, perhaps, and out of guilt, but mostly out of love. It was something foreign to the courts of the vampires, to whom such human emotions were nothing but weaknesses. Whatever had been in the vampire’s nature—the life before the death that transformed the human into the vampire—was quickly overcome by nurture. Nothing human could remain._

A spiked metal collar of silver lay heavy around his neck and there were bruises all over his pale skin although they should have easily healed. Corbin yanked savagely at the chain attached to the collar and Jean-Claude did not even cry out as the metal choked him.

“Say _bon soir_ to your lover, Asher,” came the husky voice, accented more by the edge of cruelty beneath the simple words than by the British pronunciation. “That is, if you can speak now.”

For months and months Asher had not been able to, or had not wished it. Corbin, Jean-Claude’s new master, had taken great pleasure in telling him that Asher had been forced to drink holy water, which perhaps would leave permanent damage. Asher’s golden hair was shorn unevenly, as if roughly hacked, and his haunted blue eyes stared out from a ruined face that might have been a Renaissance painting depicting classic themes of good and evil.

At the sound of his former lover’s name, Jean-Claude’s head rose to reveal further injuries. Belle Morte’s only stipulation had been that Corbin could leave no permanent injuries. Since Jean-Claude was a vampire who could heal nearly any injury, given enough time, it was the equivalent of giving Corbin completely free rein. Jean-Claude took it all uncomplaining and even forced himself to play Corbin’s games, to please him. There were worse masters that had coveted him, after all…even Morte D’Amour had asked for Jean-Claude. Somehow Belle Morte had smoothly denied her rival Council member, probably taking great pleasure in doing so.

Asher’s perusal of Jean-Claude was full of hate, but the other vampire could see at a glance that he was healing. He was healing, and that was all Jean-Claude needed. His eyes swept down Asher’s body, though the black cloak worn by the golden-haired vampire covered everything.

Corbin, angry that his slave was looking at someone else and disconcerted by Asher’s unusual return of the attention, jerked the chain again as he walked away. Jean-Claude gave a nearly silent gasp and fell, but followed obediently enough on hands and knees since Corbin didn’t give him enough time to stand. He fixed his gaze on the floor, unwilling to give his master the satisfaction of seeing his tears of humiliation, but sensed rather than saw, from his peripheral vision, Asher deliberately looking away.    

“To sell yourself to save that wreck who would like nothing better than to kill you—oh, Jean-Claude, you must be devoted indeed.” The tone was mocking, but the words revealed more than Corbin realized.

There was no reply from his victim, though a few others in the room laughed. When Jean-Claude tried to stand, Corbin forced him once more to his knees, holding the chain in one hand and unbuckling his trousers with the other. Apparently watching the two had been enough to arouse him, and he wanted to continue the game. Before things progressed, however, Asher strode out of the room. Jean-Claude’s eyes hungrily followed his departure until Corbin struck him across the face with the chain, hard enough to startle forth a pained cry, quickly stifled.

Blood filled his mouth as Jean-Claude unintentionally bit down on his tongue. Corbin took it as an invitation for a kiss, greedy for the taste of Jean-Claude’s blood, though it would give no sustenance to him. His pleasure in taking other vampires’ blood was well-known, however.    

“Now, you will show me that remarkable devotion of yours,” Corbin said with a laugh. His face was handsome even as he leaned down close to Jean-Claude, and his eyes, darkened to an almost solid black, traveled over the other’s face with all the love of an obsessed sociopath. “Forget him,” Corbin ordered.

Jean-Claude gave no response, but he fixed his eyes between the columns from which Asher had disappeared, earning Corbin’s mingled fury and passion once more. “I’d like to paint those eyes of yours,” Corbin said, hands cradling Jean-Claude’s face, thumbs gliding over his bruised cheekbones. “I want to add smudges of grey from Julianna’s ashes. You would like that, wouldn’t you? I wonder what Asher would think of your beauty, then.”      

He forced himself down Jean-Claude’s throat, choking him and delighting in it. Corbin continued to say things, words that made Jean-Claude want to scream, words that eventually numbed him, until when the ashes were brought, there was nothing left to feel. Not even when he saw the remnants of Julianna’s golden necklace, the locket melted into a twisted lump, forever concealing the portraits that had been inside, one of Jean-Claude, one of Asher. Not even when the incongruously gentle fingers brushed over his eyelids, spreading silky powder with their fingertips. Before all of the other vampires, Jean-Claude serviced Corbin, the lingering memory of raggedly shorn golden hair in his mind when he closed his eyes.

The nightmare was endless, each night worse than the one before, but Corbin had pushed him to new horrors tonight, and it was too much to bear. The smell of ash filled his lungs as it was sprinkled on his face, although he didn’t inhale. He gagged, tears streaming down his face, and heard Corbin’s low groan of pleasure, the laughter from the watchers ringing in his ears. The hot, bitter fluid filling his mouth mingled with the taste of ash, her ashes.

Then Corbin was speaking, and Jean-Claude couldn’t understand the words echoing unfamiliarly in his head. “Look who has come to see you. Look.”

He kept his eyes tightly shut, but Corbin’s fingers were gripping his jaw, exerting a crushing pressure, and the aristocratic British voice was hissing in his ear. “Look, or you’ll swallow all of it, all that’s left of your lover.”

It wasn’t until he saw the deformed strands of the necklace in a tight grasp, the dangling locket, that he saw Asher standing there, and Jean-Claude realized that he had never reached the breaking point with Corbin, _never_ …until tonight.

Once, cruelty was a strong wine flavored by a victim’s fear and not even other vampires were overlooked as participants in the games. It was not enough to be cruel without finesse, for the monster was born whole from the moment of death. So it was forgotten that every vampire had once been human, first.     

   

*           *           *

 

Jean-Claude was not alone when he awoke, though Juliette had not risen yet. His _pomme de sang_ looked more serious and worried than ever before, having had the entire day to contemplate the situation they had gotten themselves into. Worse yet, shortly before nightfall one of Belle Morte’s wereleopards had come to deliver a message, ostensibly from the Council. There would be one last event, its nature as yet undisclosed, in Jean-Claude’s honor before their departure, and Iolanthe was to be Jean-Claude’s escort. The carefully phrased words left no doubt in Jason’s mind that Juliette was to be present as well. Simply put, Belle Morte could not resist seeing what she had wrought, especially in an endeavor that had taken so many years to complete.

Jason conveyed everything to Jean-Claude as the vampire fed, his sharp incisors biting into bared flesh with little ceremony. The werewolf winced slightly from the pain since neither of them had wanted for him to be rolled beforehand. It was neither the time nor place for pleasure, although the blood loss certainly wouldn’t help calm his nerves. “Should we tell the others of what’s going on in St. Louis?”

“No. The less they know, the less need they will have for acting, especially with this event tonight.” Jean-Claude was grimly certain that Belle Morte had arranged it, although she could not know that they were aware of what was happening in St. Louis, unless Juliette had double crossed them. “They will need to be told before we arrive so that they can be ready, but not now.”

Jason glanced towards the other coffin in the room as if sharing Jean-Claude’s thoughts. “She’ll need to feed too. Should I go get someone?” At Jean-Claude’s nod, he exited the room, barely before Juliette began to wake. The other vampire scrutinized her. It was still difficult for him to look at her, but harder still to determine exactly how loyal she was. He trusted that she had overcome her fear of Belle Morte in her desperate gamble to be free, but it was yet another element of uncertainty.

“Will we be leaving?” she asked him without preamble, looking too human for having not fed. The candle that Jason had lit before the feeding gave a golden warmth to her skin that almost made Jean-Claude wish for the harsher white brilliance of electronic lighting.

“There will be one last event, perhaps a ball,” Jean-Claude told her, fighting the urge to avert his eyes. “I am to formally accompany Iolanthe, but I want you to remain close. We must not let Belle know that anything is different.”

Juliette bit her lip, the gesture so unusual for a vampire that he watched with fascination, almost expecting to see blood on her lips, although there was none. Was her seeming humanity simply careful artifice, too? Or was natural? “That may be difficult to do. Iolanthe despises me as few others do, and Belle Morte must have considered that when she chose her for you. Are you certain I am to attend?”

“She will want to see how I deal with you,” Jean-Claude replied expressionlessly. “Understand, I will not be kind towards you when we are out there. At the very least, Belle will expect me to treat you roughly and with anger. There will be eyes everywhere.”

“Do what you will,” she replied in a low voice from where she stood. Both of them turned towards the sound of three sharp knocks on the door and Jean-Claude sensed that it was Jason with another were, although an unfamiliar type.    

Before the door completely opened, Jean-Claude took a few quick steps towards Juliette, viciously backhanding her so hard that she fell. Leaning down and grasping her chin, he pressed his mouth to hers savagely, tasting her blood as he bit down with his fangs. There should have been no true pleasure in the show, but Juliette unexpectedly kissed him back, arms wrapping around him. The moment he realized it, Jean-Claude broke free, turning away in sudden disgust that was not entirely feigned.

Jason looked at the two of them but controlled his surprise and wisely remained quiet, although he touched Jean-Claude more familiarly than normal in greeting. The tawny-haired shapeshifter watched it all with wide, catlike eyes, her pupils not quite circular. Her slender figure, boyishly cut hair, and clothes all gave her the appearance of a pageboy. “The ocelot, Amora, is for Juliette,” Jason explained casually, “and there are clothes ready for all of us. We’ll leave in about four hours.”

They left Juliette alone with Amora, entering the other room while Jean-Claude checked their surroundings for security. Satisfied that they weren’t being spied on, Jean-Claude turned his attention to the clothes as they changed. “You met with Belle Morte?”

Jason’s voice was muffled as he struggled to figure out how to wear the couple hundred years’ outdated clothing. “Believe me, she would have preferred to see you directly. In fact, _I_ would have preferred that you were in my place. In the list of scary bitches, Musette just moved down a couple hundred spots—and yes, she was there, along with more vampires than I’ve ever seen all in one place.”

“Of course. The more who see me now, the better for Belle. I am to become a reminder that none can defy her.” Jean-Claude adeptly arranged his cuffs and then turned to look at Jason, amused by the hopelessly limp and tangled of fabric at the werewolf’s throat that only dimly resembled a cravat.  

“How can you guys do it? How can you have so many motives for every single thing you do?”

“We do it because we must, Jason. It is our way of existence. Think of how a predator stalks its prey with minimal movement, so that every step and moment is fraught with purpose. But all vampires are natural predators, and no one wants to be the prey. So, to avoid chaos—” Jean-Claude gestured expansively around, although it looked slightly incongruous in the empty room, “we create elaborate systems of power and control, domination and fear. The Court. The human courts of old that historians find so interesting today, and the politics of the modern governments, are but pale reflections of our games.”

“But it’s different in St. Louis,” Jason pointed out. “It’s not as crazy in the U.S.”  

“There are more human laws and fewer vampires, and it is one of the reasons why I much prefer America. There is less conflict because we are more isolated. But everything must trace back to the beginning, and there are ties that cannot be broken even over the expanse of oceans. Nor can some lessons be unlearned.” Jean-Claude checked Jason’s appearance one last time and then opened the door to Juliette’s room.

She, too, had changed into a gown of dark blue with stunning designs in silver stitching, accented by tiny seed pearls. It complemented the blue in Jean-Claude and Jason’s clothes. She was a lovely woman by any standards and certainly would not look out of place in Belle Morte’s court of night-blooming flowers, the collective name given to those of weak power. The pets, as it were. Jason looked appreciative, but Jean-Claude barely spared her a glance, urging them on. He could not forget what was at stake here.  

They met Iolanthe in the hall, where she was also elaborately dressed in flowing blue, which, true to her name, had undertones of violet. Her hand innocently rested on Jean-Claude’s proffered arm although her gaze was anything but, and as soon as she realized that he was largely ignoring her, her iniquitous smile turned into more of a pout. Jason carefully escorted Juliette some distance behind Jean-Claude and Iolanthe.

The event of the night was a play, _The Man of Mode_ by Sir George Etherege, a Restoration drama written by a libertine and about a libertine, largely based upon the second Earl of Rochester. Jason was surprised enough to laugh about it, causing Juliette to ask if anything was the matter with some alarm. Some time ago, Jean-Claude had refused to watch the Johnny Depp version of _The Libertine_ with Anita. So, after hearing about it from him, Jason had rented the DVD so that they could watch it, together with Micah, Nathaniel, and most of the pard, though none of the vampires had accepted the invitation.

“‘Natural freedoms are but just: There’s something generous in mere lust,’” Iolanthe quoted after overhearing Jason and Juliette’s conversation. “Is it any wonder that Voltaire spoke of Rochester as ‘the man of genius, the great poet’?”

“Indeed, he caught the attention of so many of us,” Jean-Claude murmured, highly aware that the play was as much about the audience watching it as it was about the complicated games being played onstage between the characters. “It was said that he was originally quite a promising lad, before he was corrupted by the court life. Nurture overcame nature, you might say.”

“Or his nature was always that of a libertine’s,” Iolanthe demurred deftly.

“Rochester was involved with the vampires?” Jason asked in surprise, forgetting his place as a _pomme de sang_. Fortunately, Juliette answered, so Iolanthe overlooked the gaffe.

“Better for him if he had not, I have heard. But yes, he was much celebrated by humans and vampires alike. ‘Angels listen when she speaks…’ He met Belle Morte more than once and greatly admired her.”

“Belle did grow tired of him,” Iolanthe said, sounding almost thoughtful. She gave an artfully careless laugh. “Of course, he died young. That is why Jean-Claude here must treasure his treasured position.” The last was ostensibly directed towards Jason in a conspiratorial whisper, the playfulness of her words not hiding the ugly meaning beneath at all. Clearly, she was aware of Belle Morte’s plot to have Corbin take over St. Louis. Perhaps many here all were, and were waiting to see how it would all turn out.

“Indeed,” Jean-Claude agreed without pause, as if it had been part of the conversation. “Belle has been most generous to me.”

Jason looked at him to find that Jean-Claude had an unreadable mask on, but it was not too difficult to see through Iolanthe’s rather crude taunt. Juliette looked straight ahead, her hands clasped and unmoving in her lap, while Jean-Claude and Iolanthe continued to converse, if it could be called that.

Time had never passed so slowly.

 

*           *           *

 

When she woke, it was all at once—every one of her senses was suddenly thrown into high alert. Her head pounded so badly she could hardly think, and for a moment Anita panicked when all she saw was darkness. Her first thought was that she had gone blind, and a muffled cry of denial escaped her. She was gagged again but her hands had been left free. She raised them to her head, where they encountered something that felt like latex. It was bandaged around her head so that it covered her eyes; she yanked at it madly, and with some effort, managed to remove it.

It was still dark, but there was a thin line of light from underneath a door, which told her she probably had been locked in a room. Was she still in the Circus? The back of her head was also sticky with blood, and she was fairly sure it was hers. Not a good sign. She didn’t even remember hitting her head, which meant it must have happened after Lisette and Corbin had overpowered her, probably before Asher had come…

 _Asher._ The thought of him made her sit up straight, which pulled muscles that screamed in protest. Where was he now? The last thing she remembered was locking gazes with Lisette and drowning in fears so deep she hadn’t even been able to put a name to them. Lisette had reached inside the darkest parts of her heart and unlocked them, setting them free one by one, all the primal feelings normally repressed into the subconscious. She had blacked out, after that.

Anita tried to reach out through her metaphysical bonds, but Richard had closed her off completely. Anger made her grit her teeth, even when she rationalized that he had probably been afraid of the outcome of his match. They were being attacked from all sides—the vampires, the wolves, perhaps even Micah was dealing with some crisis, and who could tell? The wereleopards couldn’t fight, couldn’t help even if they weren’t otherwise occupied, and Rafael was unlikely to get involved with a vampire plot, especially one laid in place by Belle Morte herself. How could she blame Richard? If he lost, it might severely weaken or even outright kill her and Jean-Claude.

Still, her anger punched through the shields between them as if they were paper-mâché walls and suddenly she was in Richard’s body, breathing hard, aware that she was badly hurt but compartmentalizing the pain. A sudden snarl filled her ears, a blur of motion from a half-wolf, half-human form, and she threw her body to the side. But she could tell that Richard was distracted by her presence, and she gratefully slipped out of his consciousness when some metaphysical ghost of him whispered, _go_. She was left shivering from the feel of strong electricity brushing over fur.    

But Anita didn’t end up in her own body, not quite. She reached for the comforting warmth of the wereleopards, reached for Micah’s strength, complement to her own, and found nothing at all. The absence was almost hard to process. It had been such a long time since she had been alone, entirely in her own body, no metaphysics, no connections. Had she gone soft from relying on others and the different sources of power she drew from them? She’d become overconfident, losing the sense of herself as an independent fighter. But her talent was in controlling the dead and it was the dead that wanted her to join them now, in a sense. She had to turn her necromancy against the vampires but somehow not without the Council finding out, or they were all as good as dead anyway.

She tried to focus on what needed to be done, but her thoughts kept wandering back to events in the past few years. Anita could not recall the last time she had fought completely alone against a threat. What had happened to Micah, to Nathaniel and all her leopards, to make them disappear entirely to her senses?

Stupid…she had been so stupid… They could be dead. No, she couldn’t think that way. That wouldn’t help her now, and she had to believe that they hadn’t lost. Asher was still somewhere here in the Circus, as were the other vampires, even if they lost. There would be no point in taking over as Master of the City if no other vampires were left to rule over. For that matter of fact, they could have killed her outright.

Every movement hurt and her limbs felt wooden and heavy, but Anita wrapped her hands around the doorknob and tried to pull herself up, cursing at the sharp pain in her thigh. She was weaponless, physically hurt, and she wasn’t healing as fast as she should have been. In fact, she was starting to feel cold, but her body healed like a lycanthrope, which meant she desperately needed heat.

Before she had time to do anything else, the door was opened, and she fell forward to her hands and knees, eyes watering as light poured over her. Rough hands gripped her arms and pulled upward, forcing her to her feet, even when she felt like she might collapse at any moment. Anita stared at the spun-gold hair before her for a moment before she processed what she was seeing, and looked up into eyes colored like arctic ice.

“Asher!” she croaked. “Asher—God, what’s happening? I can’t feel any of them, Micah, the wereleopards. Richard is still fighting…”

The vicious backhand came out of nowhere, snapping her head back, and her head exploded with pain as her vision bloomed with strange colors. She twisted to look at her attacker, hearing a feminine laugh. Lisette stood looking at her, black eyes shining oddly with some kind of glee, but it was Asher with his hand raised. She thought it was Lisette who had moved forward so fast and then put herself some distance away, but it wasn’t. It was Asher who had hit her.  

“Asher?” The question sounded pathetic, unbelieving, and it drew a laugh from him, all full of broken glass. Her lip was swollen and bleeding, but she was more worried that she was hallucinating.

“She is noisy,” Lisette said calmly, as if speaking about a disobedient child. “It would be easier to kill her first. Jean-Claude is coming soon, but there is no need for Corbin to fight him, when we already have his human servant.”

“Need I remind you, he has not given her the fourth mark yet. If you kill her now, there is no guarantee that he will die,” Asher replied, disinterestedly.

“Even better yet,” a male, accented voice spoke. Between one blink of the eye and another, Corbin had suddenly joined them, but he stood behind Asher and placed his hands on Asher’s shoulders. Anita was shivering, feeling herself dangerously close to shock, half from blood loss and injuries, and half from Asher’s actions. None of it made any sense.  

“What do you plan?” Asher asked, while Lisette looked at him with undisguised lust. Corbin smiled to see the expression in her dead black eyes, and ran a proprietary hand through the golden waves of Asher’s hair. With the other, he drew Lisette to them, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“I want to see _you_ kill her…I want to see her knowledge that you’ve betrayed her, and her Master.” Corbin said it all without sinister inflection, and yet the room seemed darker, as if the tendrils of his power could visibly affect the atmosphere. Asher was unreadable, but his eyes glittered dangerously.      

Anita struggled to keep track of the threads of conversation, trying to piece it all together. Had Asher pretended to ally with Corbin and Lisette? Was it only a pretense?

“It would be better to wait for Jean-Claude to arrive,” Asher was saying, when she focused back on him. “The shock of killing her then would do nicely, and he will be further weakened from her death. Not enough to directly cause his own, perhaps, or perhaps not, but all will see how weak he is. Even as _le sourdre de sang_ , he is weak. It will make his vampires more willing to follow you. The rest we can kill.”

The words gave Anita hope. Asher was doing this to buy time...she wasn’t exactly sure how this would work, but with Jean-Claude away, Corbin and Lisette could easily kill everyone before he got back. By the time Jean-Claude arrived, he would be in no state to fight their combined power. But if they could rally from their separation, then there was a chance.

Or was there, at all?

Lisette was whispering into Corbin’s ear, and he seemed to agree. “Kill her _now_ , Asher. It is said that you and Jean-Claude have become lovers again, along with his human servant. I do not trust those whose loyalties change so easily.”

“You misheard,” Asher said in a low voice. “It is true, I wanted him to love me again. I wanted his human servant, as well. But only to take her away from him, as he took mine away from me.”

“He lies,” Lisette said. “I taste the untruth to your words, Asher.”

“Then taste them again, and tell me if there is more untruth or truth.” He kissed Lisette suddenly, still between the two other vampires, and Corbin’s hand in his hair tightened, drawing him roughly away with unusual anger.

“Jealousy becomes you not, Corbin,” Asher hissed inhumanly. “Or are you afraid that I will take her away from you?”

“Lisette and I cannot be separated,” Corbin sneered in reply. “We will share you between us, your beauty and your horror, but we will never love you as we do each other.” His words were almost tender in the end, directed not to Asher, but to Lisette.

Belle Morte liked to speak of love, but it was the first time Anita could recall hearing it from other vampires who actually seemed to believe it. They acted as if they were really lovers, like some kind of crazy vampire Bonnie and Clyde, although the comparison was probably silly, as this partnership had probably been cemented before Bonnie and Clyde had ever been born. How could vampires act so human about love? Especially these old vampires, whose ages were great enough that she could feel them as an ache in her bones.

Immortal life, immortal love. They were the combination of two things that humans wanted most. Anita choked back a hysterical laugh. Too bad they were all bat shit crazy, preying on others’ fear like they lived off it. Along with Asher’s sudden change and his physical blow on her, the picture of Corbin’s loving look at Lisette made her feel completely disoriented and more than half crazy herself.

Her mind told her that Asher was behaving very logically if he really was acting all this, but she couldn’t tell. She should have instinctively trusted Asher, but he had been unpredictable…and Anita couldn’t trust herself because the love that Jean-Claude had for Asher in the past veiled the way she saw and loved Asher. There it was again, _love_ , but if Jean-Claude and Asher could love, if she was willing to believe that—and she knew it was true because she _felt_ what Jean-Claude did—then who was to say other vampires couldn’t?

She used to call them monsters and thought of them as no more than that. But Anita’s black and white world had dissolved into so many layers of grey that it was just possible, maybe, that there could be monsters _and_ love. But how could she use this understanding against Corbin? Her thoughts circled back: what about Asher?    

Corbin finally turned his attention back to her and she fought not to cringe under his gaze. He didn’t feed on fear or cause it, precisely. He simply drew it out of her until it overrode reason, the same way that Lisette did, or perhaps Lisette had somehow adopted the qualities and skills of her lover. Corbin studied her for a long moment, and then laughed, clapping his hands in polite applause.  

“Why, Asher, I do believe she thinks you are only pretending at your change of allegiance,” he said archly, as if reading Anita’s mind. “Will you prove to her—and to us—otherwise?”

“It would be a mistake to kill her,” warned Asher. None of them were looking at her, so Anita looked at Asher for any sign, any hope. He was completely unreadable. She wondered if she should go down fighting by putting everything into one last attack—with what, she didn’t even know. Her weapons were gone, she was hardly in any physical shape to fight, and she wasn’t sure what her other powers could do in this kind of situation. “Wait until Jean-Claude comes.”

“Jean-Claude, again!” sighed Lisette. She rested her head on Corbin’s shoulder as if wearied of waiting and his arm slipped around her tiny waist. “What shall we do, love?”

“I do not believe it would be a mistake to kill her now,” the other vampire replied, “but I do wish to see Jean-Claude when he realizes his human servant is in our grasp and Asher has left him.”

Lisette seemed to sigh in acquiescence. “Very well, then. It matters little if she dies then or now. But how else will Asher prove himself to us?”

“I will join you,” Asher said through the golden strands of his hair, “and spread my power over you…”

Corbin looked at him with undisguised hunger, but turned first to Lisette. “My love, do you agree?”

Her smile was answer enough. She deliberately brushed Asher’s hair to the side so that his entire face was revealed, scarred and not. Asher tensed at her touch, going still, but it was so momentary, it was barely noticeable. Corbin caught it and seemed pleased by his resistance. Lisette moved forward, bringing Asher and Corbin with her until she was just standing over Anita.     

The last thing Anita saw before she lost consciousness yet again was Asher passionately kissing Corbin.  

 

*           *           *

 

A/N: Yeah, I know…the age-old question of nature vs. nurture, this time applied to Corbin, and now that I think about it, really Asher, too. I’m kind of debating whether to continue. I _do_ have all the rest of the chapters planned out, so I might as well, but the latest ABVH books have really drawn me away from the fandom. I’m not fond of all the siren stuff, and instead of adding to the ever-growing list of Anita’s men, can’t we go back and develop their characters a little more? You know, aside from a description here and there about how pretty they are and how they all look amazing. The books seem to get more and more meaningless even when they get longer, the relationships are contrived, and now Anita’s juggling vampires, wereleopards, werewolves, wererats, werelions, mermaids, zombies, serial killers, the Mother of All Darkness (something like that), plus like seven (?) guys? Edward’s disappeared from the scene, understandably. Call me crazy, but I thought it was more romantic in the earlier books when she wasn’t in love with Jean-Claude, Asher, Richard, Micah, Nathaniel, etc. at the same time. (I’m indignant on Jean-Claude and Asher’s behalf, obviously.)

 **Please rate and review**. The next chapter, “Nature,” continues the fight between Corbin and Jean-Claude. Asher meets Juliette, and we’ll see whether vampires really are capable of love or not. To all the readers and reviewers, thank you!    


	6. Nature

Elysian Dreams

September 12, 2008

Disclaimer: This story is written purely for the enjoyment of the fans. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No copyright infringement is intended.

Note: New working link to Bach's "The Art of the Fugue" here (piano version as I prefer it to organ/orchestral versions), I recommend the 14th but they're all worth a listen of course: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgmpBHAwFLk>

*           *           *

**N A T U R E**

*           *           *

_He had died during the transformation from human to vampire, once. It should have been impossible for Asher to die again as a human, and yet he had. Before he had been consumed by hurt and rage, before betrayal and death had become his entire world, he had loved, and neither vampiric strength nor vampiric practices had changed that. There was always Julianna to be human for them both. But that love was a remnant of humanity, and to be human was to be able to die—even when one was a vampire._

A full hundred years of servitude. It had been weeks before Asher had heard the whispers floating around the court, and many more months before he became lucid enough to understand those were the terms of the contract between Jean-Claude and Belle Morte, the price set for his healing.

Then, he had just wanted Jean-Claude to die.

A century of payment, even a century of payment as judged by Belle Morte, was not enough, not nearly enough. During Belle Morte’s periodic checks on him, Asher had howled for Jean-Claude’s death, her amused laughter a delicate counterpoint to the sound of his rage. Belle Morte could not have been more delighted by all that had happened—Julianna’s death, Jean-Claude and Asher turning against each other, Jean-Claude readily surrendering himself to her. Her only regret was that Asher’s natural beauty had been damaged, and yet that had become interesting as well. His captors had recreated him into a fascinating dichotomy of attraction and repulsion.

The love and hate between Asher and Jean-Claude was evident in Asher’s demands for Jean-Claude’s death, as retribution for the murder of his human servant. Such love from Jean-Claude, such hate from Asher. The whole court knew about it, watching and waiting for some signal from Belle Morte that her previous favorites could now be fair game. Which of them would prevail, and with which emotion? There was a delicious irony in the fact that the victim called for his savior’s death.  

It was only after a nearly interminable period of madness and pain that Asher realized the foolishness of his wish. It was a human sentiment, to want to kill. It was irrational to desire to end a life that was already naturally limited, to hasten a death that would come eventually. No. That was not what he wished for Jean-Claude.

It had taken a very long time for him to truly understand the name Belle Morte had chosen for herself. It was true that unlike other powerful vampires, her specialty was her ability to fool others into craving death, in effect committing suicide for the pleasure it promised—such was the power of the _ardeur_. But that was not the only reason for her unique title and reputation among those who ruled the world.  

 _Beautiful death._ Few understood that to Belle Morte, it was not death that was beautiful, but eternal suffering—the kind that becomes a beautiful death precisely because it is a death that could never be reached, even when one begged for it.

As Jean-Claude was begging now. Asher watched with blank eyes, hardly noticing which vampire it was this time that was cutting his former lover apart, making hundreds of bleeding red lines on limp arms and legs, on a bare torso that gleamed like white marble, on a graceful neck with a necklace of bruises. He witnessed the vampires gathering around, excited by the sight of one once so high brought so low, and eager for a taste of blood.

Asher had also watched once, early on when he had first joined Belle’s court, when a lord had dared to cross Belle Morte. The lord had been brought before her and had pled at her feet, voice shaking with fear. He had promised anything, everything, if only she would spare his life—and so Belle Morte had.

She had not taken anything, she had only given. She had made him into a vampire: that was her revenge, to gift him with eternal life and with the strength to heal whatever became her whim. She served his liver to the other lords for a week before she tired of it, her very own Prometheus suffering each day for his transgression against a goddess. Death was too easy of an escape, too short an event. To one who had lived through millennia, the life of a human was already like that of an insect. Such ephemeral things provided only passing amusements. Belle had both endless appetite and patience; her plans were not things that involved years, but decades and even centuries.

So when Asher finally was able to think clearly again, when it was fairly certain that he would survive his human servant’s death, he realized that he no longer wanted Jean-Claude to die. This was not about death. Asher wanted Jean-Claude not to join Julianna, but to forever know what it was like to be separated from her, as he was.

Jean-Claude was making little screaming sounds now. It made Asher tense until he thought of how Julianna had screamed as she died, believing even then that Jean-Claude would save her. Jean-Claude would scream tonight, and most likely every night after that until he learned to be mute no matter what was done to him. Belle Morte would give his body to anyone who would have it, the most perfect courtesan—well, no longer. Jean-Claude was utterly powerless now, under his hundred year contract, and it would make him little more than the most perfect prostitute in all of France, no, all of Europe…

For him, Jean-Claude would be a whore in every sense of the word, and even that was not enough, because nothing could bring back Julianna.

Rage and anger roared up in Asher again, threatening to burn through him, as if he could feel the holy water melting his skin again. His hatred of Jean-Claude mingled with his despair of what he’d lost, until he could not separate the feelings, knowing only that they threatened to tear him apart. He thought of Jean-Claude kneeling and leashed like a dog, just like the vampire who had been on display that very first time they had walked down black marble together, to Belle Morte.

He thought of the skin he had touched and cherished and loved, the body he had learned, being used according to others’ amusements, and there was something hard and jagged inside him. Satisfaction? No, not even.

Before his eyes, Jean-Claude was being broken like a spirited horse, but since he was a vampire, his body would heal again and again. But would his mind? Asher hoped… He did not even know what he hoped anymore. He had wished for Jean-Claude’s death, but then wished for his life, so he could continue experiencing the torment… One hundred years. Surely he would go mad in that period, or someone would take it too far and Jean-Claude’s life would be snuffed out in the midst of some sick game… It would be a mercy, even, if it happened before the hundred years were up.

_But would Julianna have wanted this? For us both to turn into monsters, after her death?_

He ruthlessly pushed the thoughts away, taking refuge again in the black hate he had nurtured within himself. Jean-Claude wasn’t making any sounds at all now and Asher’s head turned as if of its own volition, as if he had to look. Jean-Claude’s legs were being spread apart, his buttocks slapped crudely, as if he were a common whore— There was a tittering of nervous laugher from the others in the room, voyeurs all, waiting to get their revenge by seeing what became of Belle Morte’s favorite. And Jean-Claude was so goddamned beautiful still, through it all, that more were entering the room to watch his violation.

Asher couldn’t think anymore, but wasn’t that what he had labeled him in his mind just moments ago, anyway? The whole Court knew it, just as he knew the body that had formerly been given to him in love would be taken by another momentarily, in an act of rape—

Bile rose in his throat and Asher left the room quickly, escaping Jean-Claude, escaping the emotions threatening to overwhelm him entirely. But it was still happening and not for the last time. He would grow used to it, though. In the few times Jean-Claude had actually caught his gaze, Asher saw such self-loathing that he was almost convinced Jean-Claude _wanted_ to be tortured like this, to be broken down physically and mentally, because it eased his guilt. It was a century of punishment, more than an average human’s entire lifespan, perhaps longer than an entire nation’s period of humiliation.

A hundred years might have satisfied Belle Morte as payment, but it would never be enough in Asher’s eyes. It had all come to an end. He had lost Julianna forever. He had lost Jean-Claude, even if Jean-Claude was spread before him on the black marble a dozen paces away. He had really lost himself, whatever part of him that had loved…

He could only wonder: how many deaths would Jean-Claude go through in thirty thousand days and nights?

_Out of the fury and intensity of primordial power, the first vampire had been created. In its state of nature, it had the perfect freedom to act as nature’s laws allowed it. Had the vampire once been a human, one driven to kill humans by a newly developed bloodlust? Or had it chosen its role, having learned that its superior abilities easily made it predator to the humans’ prey?_

 

*           *           *

 

Eleven hours and some change. It was the amount of time that it took to fly from Paris to St. Louis, even on a private aircraft. They had left around 8 pm, well before the end of the Council’s planned entertainment. Jean-Claude had risked political and perhaps literal suicide by walking out on Belle Morte and the rest, but the risk could not compare to the thought that he would be too late to save Asher and Anita.

Too late, _again_. Too late, caught in other games and gambling for time, while those most precious to him suffered. It was different this time. It had to be. Jean-Claude knew that he had everything to lose, but if he died, if those he loved died, at least it would be by his choice, not by the maneuverings and power politics of a distant Council. At least he would die with them, seeing them one last time. At least he would hear Asher and Anita’s voice again, unlike Julianna’s, save for the haunting memory that Asher had left him: that Julianna had called out his name, hoping to be saved, even as she had burned.

He knew that by now the Circus of the Damned had already been taken over by Belle Morte’s chosen vampire. The fight was over, in most senses of the word. They would only be waiting for him to return so that they could finish him off. It was a trap, but one that Jean-Claude had no choice but to walk into—so cleverly had Belle Morte designed it.

Juliette was a distraction, nothing more. A reminder that once upon a time, there had been a woman named Julianna, and the memory of her had lived for far longer than she had.

The night seemed endless, suspended in time. The hours of darkness literally stretched on; the vampires would not rest at all as they moved alongside the sun’s shadowing of the earth. Paris was seven hours behind and they would arrive in St. Louis just around midnight in local time.

“Jean-Claude,” Jason said softly, startling him with a hand on his shoulder. Jean-Claude’s hand whipped up to encircle Jason’s wrist in a brutal grip, nearly crushing the delicate carpals. For a moment he was seized with the savage need to punish, to inflict pain—anything to ease the tension that gripped him. If he had been a werewolf, he would have growled and bared his fangs in an unmistakable warning. Instead, Jean-Claude froze in perfect silence. Across from him, Juliette gasped a warning, her response far too late.

With some difficulty, he let go of Jason, who withdrew his hand. His _pomme de sang_ ’s baby blue eyes were wide and pained, but in true Jason style, he smiled ruefully as if the vampire had not nearly broken his wrist. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What is it?” Jean-Claude asked, trying to control himself. Under so much stress, his instincts were threatening to override his reason, something he could not afford right now.

“You’ve probably already thought of it all, but you have to prepare yourself.” Jason stopped and studied Jean-Claude, trying to see if it was all right to continue. When he got no response, he continued. “We don’t know what the situation is, but I think both Anita and Asher are still alive. They’re probably badly hurt, though. You have to expect it. You have to remember that however much pain they’re in, they can heal it, if they’re given the chance.”

“I know, Jason,” Jean-Claude replied tightly. He quelled his irritation at being given a speech by his own _pomme de sang_ , knowing that the werewolf meant only to help. “But we will be alone in this. Richard and Micah, the wererats, all of our allies will be tested themselves, against their peers. Belle Morte plans carefully, and her selected leaders are nearly as dangerous as she herself.”    

“At least the new vamps from London will be loyal to you,” Jason said resignedly. “It was a good thing that you bound them to you.”

Juliette turned her head so that she could look at her new master. “London,” she murmured, as if only now coming awake. “I am not sure, but perhaps…perhaps it is London…”

“What of it?” Jean-Claude’s were clipped, but Juliette did not react at all. After Belle Morte, Jean-Claude’s temper was welcome.

“The news lately in court have been about the assassination of the Master of the City of London, the one who chose the name Dracula. One of Belle’s first vampires. The Council called for his death after he began killing humans.” Juliette’s eyes flickered from Jean-Claude to Jason as if she were unsure of who to address, but she continued. “Since he was one of Belle Morte’s own, his death was arranged by her as well.”

“Belle Morte arranges many deaths,” Jean-Claude stated, turning away from Juliette in dismissal. “I took many of the London vampires, all those who could trace their lineage back to her, and angered her. But she is not so petty as to want to permanently lose Asher and myself over it. Even fallen from grace, even after I have become a _sourdre de sang_ , we are worth more to her.”

“No, that is not what I meant,” Juliette hastened to say. “When Dracula was killed, his second rose to power and became the new Master of the City. However, the third in line left the London court entirely. It was rumored that he had been great rivals with the new Master and that he was discontent to be second.”

“You mean to say that perhaps he is the vampire Belle has chosen,” Jean-Claude breathed, concentration sharpening his gaze until Juliette dropped her eyes briefly, unable to bear it.

“Yes, because he would be powerful enough. He had not been in London long, either, and had not formed any attachment to the place. He was French; he had originally been from Belle Morte’s court but had left when his lover displeased her.”

“What is his name?”

Juliette hesitated. “Corbin, I believe.”

“ _Corbin_ ,” Jean-Claude snarled, hardly noticing how Jason and Juliette both suddenly drew back. With that name, he understood everything.    

He could still taste ashes in his mouth.

 

*           *           *

 

“Have I proved my loyalty to your satisfaction?” Asher purred, the double-edged meaning of his words causing both Lisette and Corbin to shudder languorously. The electric attraction of his unique powers still lingered between them, the connection increased by Corbin’s repeated attempts to roll him. Asher had taken no true pleasure from their activities, but even he could not be sure now how much he belonged to himself and how much he belonged to them. And how much, if at all, did he still belong to Jean-Claude?

Lisette rolled on her back to stare into Corbin’s eyes and Asher waited patiently in the silence, having learned that the lovers chose to communicate in their own way. As one, both smiled, and then their hands reached for him.

“You are worthy indeed,” Lisette said with a charming lilt to her voice. “Worth all of the waiting I have done for you. Do you not think so, Corbin?”

“He transforms love into an art,” he agreed, tasting Asher’s neck and letting his razor-sharp fangs graze delicately over the skin, coaxing forth the tiniest bit of blood.

Asher swallowed hard, closing his eyes to the sight around him—Jean-Claude’s bed, the dramatically colored sheets still faintly smelling of him, despite everything that happened. There were stronger scents in the air now, of course, the darker perfumes of blood, sex, ecstasy, agony. It seemed worse that it had happened here, of all place. He wished he could forget it all, block out the familiar sight of light fabric draped from the walls, softening the bare stone beneath.

He wished he could forget how he had _forgotten_ , in the midst of pleasure, the torment that Anita must have been going through, the battles that the wereleopards and werewolves were embroiled in, the knowledge that Jean-Claude’s vampires waited for their leader and their leader’s second to either prevail or be overcome, subjecting them all to new masters far less kind. His power had unleashed almost every inhibition, tangling them all up in pleasure until he had lost his sense of self, as they had as well.

Now it all came back and he wanted to scream in his anguish. All the things he had temporarily forgotten, as he had fallen under the triangle of power from Corbin, Lisette, and himself. They had shared him between them…and they had appreciated him, Asher could not deny that. He had not fully used his skills, his powers, in centuries—not since those days he had shared it with Jean-Claude in Belle Morte’s bed.

“How has Jean-Claude resisted such allure?” Corbin’s voice was soft, but the words were clearly meant to be insulting. Asher stiffened, sensing the shift in the moods of the lovers. What had they planned through that shared glance? He did not know how much longer he could last before he could no longer continue to pretend that he had joined them. Above all else, he was afraid that it was no longer pretense.

He could feel himself becoming once again the Asher who had watched as Jean-Claude was tortured before him, who had even encouraged his former lover’s tormenters. In some ways, he had never ceased being the same Asher who had begged Belle Morte for permission to end Jean-Claude’s life.

Perhaps it was better if he did join Lisette and Corbin, if Jean-Claude had abandoned them. Asher’s fingernails dug into the skin of his palms, sending stabbing pains through his hands. No, he could not doubt Jean-Claude, not again.      

Lisette’s tiny arms reached around his chest now, clasping him to her. “Practice for later,” she whispered. Asher didn’t understand, until he looked up to see Corbin’s eyes flooded with color, the black pupils shrinking to near nothingness.      

He had spread his power over them earlier and now it was his turn to take theirs. Practice for Jean-Claude, Lisette meant. Of course. Who else knew Jean-Claude as well as he did? Who else’s memories would have all of Jean-Claude’s weaknesses and fears? It was Corbin’s power to draw out natural fears, and Lisette’s talent to amplify them, creating new monsters out of old ones. They were a true unit, each anticipating the wants and desires of the other, almost as if they possessed that special connection that sometimes existed between twins.

Asher was powerless to resist as they joined to invade his mind. He had given his body to buy more time for them all, hoping for Jean-Claude’s return, but now Asher knew that it was lost. Even should Jean-Claude return, even if he should prevail against Corbin, Asher could never been forgiven for this…

The despair was overwhelming. Was it Corbin, or was it only Asher’s own realization of the hopelessness of the situation for them, and especially for him personally? He had betrayed Jean-Claude, but for what? He had done nothing to save Anita, just as he had done nothing to save Julianna.

Corbin seized on Asher’s thought and dug into his memories of Julianna and Jean-Claude, and then his more recent memories of Anita. Asher writhed in the bed, trapped between Corbin and Lisette’s bodies, unable to even cry out as they drew out his fears and looked through them as if he were an open book. It was the stuff of nightmares, a mental attack more debilitating than any other kind because of its finesse. _He was a child again, his lady mother showing him off as if he were one of the jewels in her necklace… Anita was staring lifelessly back at him, eyes blank and accusing, and Asher’s hands trembled as they held the knife that had ended her life… Belle Morte, her curled hair spilling lusciously over one pale shoulder, her bloody mouth covering Jean-Claude’s neck, draining him completely…_ Each situation effortlessly unraveled in his mind, part memory, part imagination.

For them, it was a process as methodical as a surgery. At some point Asher lost himself completely. He was taken back to Julianna’s death. Everything kept returning to that point. Asher relived it all, but now there was more to remember that had never been there before. His fears focused on that one event and expanded as Corbin and Lisette traced out a hundred possibilities, and then a hundred thousand.

But then Asher was falling back into himself, suddenly aware of the fabric beneath his cheek, the silk of Lisette’s lips on his, before she drew away with satisfaction in her black eyes. She reached out to touch his hair, still fascinated by the spun gold. Gradually, Asher became aware of his surroundings again. Tears had thoroughly soaked the pillow beneath him. The sheets smelled even more strongly of sweat, fear, and sex. Lisette gave Corbin a puzzled look, as if wondering why Corbin had hesitated and then stopped entirely.

“Love, what is it?” she asked. Corbin looked at her as if memorizing every detail of her face. His expression was soft and adoring, the look of a man who, after fifty years of marriage, had suddenly remembered the moment he had first fallen in love with his wife.

“Nothing,” he replied, but released his grip on Asher’s arms. “But Jean-Claude comes.”

Asher was limp with relief and horror. Corbin spared him a half-pitying glance. “They were not so different from us, were they?” he murmured. “But never as strong. They only played at love, as all those of Belle Morte’s line play at love, but they loved without truly becoming one. That is why his human servant died, but he did not.”

“It is why he betrays Jean-Claude,” Lisette breathed onto Asher’s skin, leaning over him so that her lips were only an inch from his. “You are _so_ very afraid, Asher. I can drink down your fear and never be weary again. But what is your greatest fear?” She finally drew back, head slightly tilted to the side as she studied him. “That you will discover that vampires cannot love at all…or that they _can_?”

Asher’s soundless sobs were lost as Corbin and Lisette met above him and kissed each other. It was nothing like what had occurred before when Asher had used his powers on all of them. It was chaste and tender; nothing more, nothing less.

 

*           *           *

 

She was gasping for breath. No, she was panting, her sides heaving with the effort of drawing fresh breath into her lungs, ribs aching from the battering they had just taken. The night air was chilly and smelled heavy with dew, as if she could drink it rather than breathe it.

Powerful muscles moved beneath her fur as she threaded through the trees, using her speed to build a slight advantage. There would come a moment when she would have to turn around again and face the one that chased her, but this momentary respite would give her the advantage as she healed and gathered her strength.

He was there too, as if both of them shared the same body. Now that she was more aware, she knew that it was not hers at all, but his. All the shields between them had dissolved when the other wolf had sunk his teeth into their throat, almost killing them. The other wolf’s heavy mass had slammed into theirs, sending them tumbling to the ground. Only their thick fur had prevented sharp, deadly teeth from severing the jugular.

Now they were running. Now she was trying to prepare herself for the sudden burst of energy needed to overcome an opponent that was actually larger. She had been the leader for so long. She had been alpha to all others, even when she was not at her full strength. Physically, she was always stronger. Mentally, she had always been just weak enough to tempt others to try…

It was too confusing, the ghostly feeling of riding along in this body without any true control. They had to return to the stone circle. The pack waited there for the outcome of this match. Fighting had already broken out between the wolves as the dominant sought to renew their status and the weak challenged, emboldened by the new wolf who had come to become their new Ulfric.

There was no human instinct left. They were not werewolves, but wolves, not half-human, but monster. His greatest fear. He had to face his greatest fear, and it had not truly come in the body of a challenger to his position, but in what was happening around them. Humans turned into animals, driven by their most base instincts. This was what he had tried to shield her from, not the potential ramifications of his death and what it would mean to the _ménage a trois_ , but this—the monster.

It had lurked within him. Now it was all around him, around them. There had once been another night, and she had been there too—had been there as they had killed and eaten. Wolves devouring humans. It was the thing that had driven her into the vampire’s bed in the first place, but there was no jealousy in the wolf’s mind now.

He only wanted to kill. He only knew that if he did not kill, then he would be killed. He fought not for the survival of the pack, or for leadership, but for life. Electricity rushed through his veins, the metaphysical link solidifying as they drew on each other’s reserves of power. She was trapped with him now in this body, to either witness his victory or death. His lupa.

The human he had rejected, but the wolf he had embraced. It was the opposite of what he had applied to himself, in his desperate wish to be human, to stave off the monster of the wolf. Even now, he could feel how deeply the rejection had hurt her—but the wolf was not concerned about human things, human affairs. The wolf did not understand names or moral choices. The wolf did not care about such things.

He had pushed himself—had pushed _them_ —to their limits. The other one was almost nipping at his heels. In one fluid, sudden motion, he turned and snapped. His teeth closed on the right foreleg and his jaw clenched down until there was a sharp, satisfactory crack. Bones had broken. The other let out a pained whimper and drew away on three legs.

They were even now, both badly hurt. Both had expended energy for quick healing, but that was a distant possibility now. The pack had been feeding him power, giving him strength, but now no power derived from lycanthropy would help them. For the moment, they were almost completely ordinary. But they were still wolves.  

They were circling around each other, snarls bursting from their throats subconsciously. He only had a moment’s premonition as his rival darted in. He lunged out of the way, causing fiery pain to spread across his right side, but the other wolf missed and fell back. The moment his opponent was off balance on three legs, he took advantage. His teeth sank into the thick fur on the ruff of the wolf’s neck, but he let go as pain suddenly bloomed into his ear. The other wolf’s jaws had snapped shut on the soft cartilage and now he tore his teeth through the sensitive flap of skin.

Both let go, and returned to their impasse. It smelled of excitement now. The wolves could sense that the end of the fight was approaching. His breathing was increasingly labored, but the other was limping, his right foreleg rendered useless. Without it, he could only rely on his teeth.  

Blood matted darkly on fur, both on them and on the waiting wolves. _This_ was natural freedom, natural savagery. It was wholly without morals and reason, wholly a thing of instinct. She thought it was as far from the refined games of the vampires as it could get, and yet at its very basis, it was exactly the same. Whether succession was determined in bloody battle or through the subtle press of power, it was predator against predator.

He jumped forward, anticipating his rival’s move to the left, and his teeth scrabbled for purchase on the wolf’s skull. The wolf fell to the ground but twisted his neck around, jaws dangerously close to his neck. For a moment it seemed like neither had done much, and then his teeth slid and sank into something soft, his jaws instinctively closing as far as they could.

The wolf’s eye burst as his teeth pierced into the eye socket, but the satisfaction was short lived. Almost simultaneously, other teeth closed about his throat, aiming unerringly for the vein. He felt the shock going through his body, the sudden surprise. Blood sprayed in a strong gush as the two wolves disengaged.

Her sick fear and realization washed over him. He was _dying_. The other wolf had rolled to its feet, although it would not last as Ulfric, not with one eye. The strength bled out of them, leaving them both too weak to move. His eyes closed, and then he remembered.

Richard. Anita. It all came flooding back—names, human faces, voices with words. He had fought the monster within him, then later, much later, wondered if she had become the monster instead. He had wanted a _normal_ life with her, nothing to do with wolves and the Thronnos Rokke clan. Nothing about her being lupa to his Ulfric, or taking on the duty of the Bolverk.

It was all gone. Her connection with him was fading along with his life, his heart struggling to continue to beat when all the blood kept gushing out of the gaping wound in his neck. Richard tried to focus, tried to remember how much he had loved her. He didn’t want to bring her down with him. They weren’t together, they couldn’t _be_ together. Not then, not now.

He tried to shut her out. One last, final rejection.

 

*           *           *

 

Just outside the Circus of the Damned, in the employee parking lot, Jason cried out and crumpled to the ground. They had just been about to enter, to do their best to wrestle back power and control—or, as Jean-Claude feared, to be witnesses before they were killed themselves.

It was already too late for one of them. Jean-Claude had also stopped at the moment Jason fell, sinking to his knees as he felt the absence and understood what had happened. Something about the moment had forced Jason into his wolf form, the change accompanied by the usual liquid and pain. As the gigantic wolf panted, pink tongue lolling out, Jean-Claude bowed his head.

“What happened?” Juliette looked from Jason to Faust to him to Meng Die, finding no answers in any of their faces. She struggled to help Jean-Claude up, voice shrill with fear. “What is it?”

“Richard—“ he gasped, but his thoughts were already far away. There was such a vast emptiness in him, the connection that had always been present, always beneath the surface of his thoughts suddenly severed. A part of him ripped away, the connection they had made years ago suddenly overwhelming in its absence.

Jean-Claude looked into Jason’s wolfish eyes, but already knew what it meant for Richard to cut off their bond. The Ulfric had been brought down, and it was more than likely permanent. After all they had been through, stretching back to those days when Richard had occupied his bed…the very first time Anita had seen the werewolf… It couldn’t end this way, in this takeover of power. Everything was being stripped away from him, one by one. He had always thought that Richard’s weakness would be the death of them, but instead it was his own.

Jason whined a confirmation, somehow both menacing and more vulnerable than Jean-Claude had ever seen before. The _ménage a trois_ was broken. Jean-Claude lacked his wolf to call. More than that, his friend was lost, killed because outside vampires had decided to interfere in St. Louis.

But had Anita died as well? Had Richard sealed himself off soon enough? Jason convulsed on the ground, the wolf seeming to fight some change as Faust and Juliette held him. Before they could do anything to stop him, Jean-Claude had become a shadow passing across the parking lot to the door, a blur of cold fury.

He reached to open the door, only to find it already opening. Light glinted on golden hair as Jean-Claude saw Asher, but the scarred vampire’s eyes were on something slightly further away—the figure of the woman helping Jason up. As if feeling his intense gaze on her, the woman turned and Asher saw the heart-shaped face and the dark, liquid eyes of his nightmares and dreams.

 

*           *           *

 

A/N: Remember _Burnt Offerings_? Okay, so I actually got into series with NiC since I would barely have been a tween when _Burnt Offerings_ came out...nevertheless, looking back at the old books and comparing them to the new really explains why I gave up on this fandom. I’m not very satisfied with this chapter, but at least it’s here. Better really late than never. This hasn’t been edited, so sorry for the typos and occasional missing word. Feedback would be really helpful, so **please review**!


	7. Trust

Elysian Dreams

March 24, 2010

Disclaimer: This story is written purely for the enjoyment of the fans. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No copyright infringement is intended.

 **Notes** : It’s been another year! Every time I read an old Anita Blake book (I would consider Cerulean Sins the turning point – though I knew for sure things were over when the sirens/mermaids showed up) I remember why I loved this fandom so much. Then I read the newest book and remember why I dropped out of it. Anyway, like last time, I got a few reviews totally out of the blue and was like, ‘hey, I remember working on Fugue, let me open the file…’ Since I roughly planned out the story so long ago, I know exactly what I never got around to writing. So here’s another part and I hope you enjoy.

You can listen to Bach’s “The Art of the Fugue” here: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgmpBHAwFLk>

The most famous performance of it is by Glenn Gould, which can be found on YouTube. My hope was to show past and present together, to have memory as a complex counterpoint to current reality, in the same way that the fugue is constructed – a simple theme spinning out into endless variations, forming elaborate combinations of highest musicality.

 **Misc. Notes** : According to the “All Things Anita” website, Faust is actually a Master vampire, but since I started writing this story before we found that out, his status is kind of murky in this, okay? I might go back one day and revise it (it makes sense for Jean-Claude to go to meet the council with Meng Die, a powerful and aggressive/ambitious Master, and a weaker one) but not right now. Also, why Faust? I have no idea what I was thinking back then, but I think it was because I had just finished NiC, where apparently he was introduced (I thought it was much earlier).

 

*           *           *

**T R U S T**

*           *           *

_Once, Jean-Claude had been just one of many passengers straining, after having weathered an ocean voyage from his now distant homeland of France, for a first glimpse of that dream called America._

One hundred years and he had finally gained some measure of freedom back, but what he had experienced in that slow crawl of time had changed him forever. Now he was running from Belle Morte and the memories he could not erase. He needed to escape from the past, but most of all, from Asher. Golden Asher, beautiful still, but rumored to have been ruined forever, left with only the pleasures of pain.

There were things that even vampires could not heal—some things of the body, it was true, and many more of the mind. He had almost broken entirely, but it was fitting in some ways, for was not Asher also the broken god of Belle’s court? For all the timelessness of vampires, who had surpassed death once, they could still die. They were a little bit mortal, after all.

Jean-Claude had not seen Asher during his service of the last twenty years of his contract, but as the end of his time came, he had heard rumors. Asher would return, for Belle Morte wanted once more to see the drama unfold between the two vampires that had once been admired and feared by all, _les lieutenants_ of her court. Almost one hundred years after Julianna’s death, her specter still haunted Jean-Claude’s almost as much as Asher’s, though sometimes it was the memories of Julianna that allowed him to continue living.

It was hard to kill a vampire in some ways, but also easy in others. Jean-Claude had contemplated doing it countless times but some last spark of hope always held him back. He had even thought about holy water, wondering if he could somehow burn out the guilt that had hollowed him out from the inside, leaving an empty, pretty package.

Yet Asher _lived_. Even though Jean-Claude felt as if he had been broken down like a song into the most simple of notes, a faint melody continued, barely discernable, unbalanced, but ongoing. He knew Asher wanted his life now, demanded it of Belle Morte at every occasion, but even that was a sort of tenuous connection. Even hate could be a bone thrown to the starving dog that he was, because it proved Asher was aware he existed and still felt something. Jean-Claude was not even sure if he, himself, felt anything anymore.

Then they had come face to face for the last time; their meeting was by chance. The scent of night-blooming flowers had filled the gardens of Belle’s court and the moon was only a tiny crescent, casting the palest moonlight on the unmoving statues half-hidden amidst climbing vines and wild briar rose. A perfect setting for reconciliation, now that Jean-Claude was free and Asher’s body healed as much as it could be.

It was not to be. Asher’s ice blue eyes were bleached even more of color, though both could see each other as clearly as if it were day. Jean-Claude felt as though Asher’s gaze were a glass knife slipping silently into his heart.  

“Asher.” No theatrics in his voice, no special caress, only a hundred years worth’ of pain in that name. He had always thought the name itself was beautiful, suggestive of brushed silk and gentle seduction, the _shh_ a linguistic pleasure. But at that moment there was only the eerie resonance of that particular name with the knowledge that Julianna had burned to ashes.

The shadows were kind to his scars and moonlight glinted on the silvered hair that he used as a veil across half his face. Asher turned to leave and Jean-Claude called his name a second time.

It was a farewell, even if he did not know it. Jean-Claude would secretly leave France on the morrow.

“Asher,” Jean-Claude whispered again now, for the very last time, before locking the name away within him. He was leaving it all behind him: Belle Morte, France, the European vampires and their endless power plays, the memories and torments, the memories of torments. He would start over again, like all the other dreamers here.

There was a murmur of building excitement among the other passengers, set off by a woman’s gasp. He turned his eyes to the dim shoreline and saw now the shadowing figure of the Lady of Liberty, the Mother of Exiles. Now that they were close, he could see the light gleamed from her crown and the torch in her upraised hand. Even by night, it was a sight to behold.

_Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore._

Yes, this symbol of the connection between France and America stirred him deeply. He had seen France’s fortunes rise and fall, had endured the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. His time with Joséphine de Beauharnais had come and gone, that Joséphine more commonly known as Napoleon Bonaparte’s empress. Even Yvette, the sadistic rotting Master vampire of Morte d’Amour’s line, had had to let him go when he was called back to court.

Belle Morte had finally lost her interest in him and instead had turned her attentions back to Asher. But he could not think of that now, could not indulge himself by remembering.

_Nearly half a century later, he would read the words penned by Camus in French and savor them like the finest of wines. “To live is to hurt others, and through others, to hurt oneself. Cruel earth! How can we manage not to touch anything? To find what ultimate exile?”_

 

*           *           *

 

She could see him staring at her and knew immediately who it was, for he matched every description she had heard of him and yet none of them had been able to capture what was now before her. The expression in Asher’s eyes warmed her—how could it not, when a man looked at you as if he were dying of hunger and you alone could provide the nourishment he yearned for?

But Juliette knew it was all a sham, just as it had been when Jean-Claude had first seen her waiting for him in his rooms at Belle Morte’s court. So instead of locking gazes with the golden vampire— _Asher_ , she reminded herself—she turned toward Jean-Claude, because she knew that her unexpected presence here had upset everything. Like an extra pawn on a chessboard full of deadlocks, she was the weakest of them all but perhaps the freest to make a move. Would it be their further downfall or somehow their salvation?

She was drawn toward the two of them as if by their sheer power and then suddenly they were all standing face to face. “Jean-Claude?” she whispered, looking for guidance.

“He is no longer mine.” It was said smoothly, for Jean-Claude would have known right away. Should probably have known before they had even come to this point—as soon as he had reached St. Louis, he would have checked all the ties to him and seen which ones still remained.

“I am not Julianna,” she told Asher directly, while Meng Die and Faust had already entered the Circus, ignoring the confrontation unfolding between the three vampires. It was clear Asher did not believe her. He looked like he had rediscovered the existence of his heart just after he had torn it out from his own chest.

“I must find Anita,” Jean-Claude said tightly, and Juliette wondered if he could still feel his marks on his human servant. “You cannot stop me, Asher.”

Yet her chosen Master had an expression of sick confirmation that she was sure would have been hidden beneath a blank mask in all other circumstances. Asher stood in the doorway to greet them and there was more than a hint of madness in his eyes.

“History repeats itself,” Asher murmured, the first words he had spoken in all this time. Juliette tried not to let herself get caught up in that voice. A strange joy burst within her as he spoke, not to Jean-Claude, but to her. No grand words, but each made her feel alive as she had never felt. “Have you come to haunt me, Julianna, for destroying all the love that remained when you left the two of us?”

At last, her existence meant something more than hate. Asher, Jean-Claude, the two vampires had proudly loved the original Julianna, and that reason was the only reason why _she_ , Julianna as well, had been made. Now her suffering had some small measure of meaning. Jean-Claude should not have been shocked at Asher’s change of heart, but then Juliette could understand some truth in this tableau before them.

The two were lovers—whether in name only or otherwise—and had been such even before Julianna, that woman who had endured as a memory throughout history, and in Juliette’s own life. Asher was Jean-Claude’s second. It was one thing to fight a takeover and fail, succumbing to another Master vampire’s claim, but another thing entirely to join the invaders.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled as the power between the two vampires suddenly rose to a new level, until it was almost a palpable force around them. Jean-Claude’s eyes had bled to a solid dark sapphire and Asher’s pupils had dissolved beneath the icy blue-white flames of his irises as well. Just from being so close to them and the vortex of power they had called, Juliette knew her own eyes were bleeding to dark chocolate.

“Richard has been killed. The triumvirate has been broken. You seek to delay me, Asher?”

Asher raised his head slightly, the hair falling back from his face, and for the first time Juliette saw the scars that had cast him out of Belle Morte’s favor. Her stomach twisted in horror and regret. She reached out to touch without even realizing what she was doing, and Asher flinched back, hissing like a snake. “You will not want me now, Julianna, not the monster I have become.”

It was unclear whether Asher was even in his right mind, or whether he thought this was all a hallucination. No matter; Juliette felt more like an outsider than she had ever felt before in Belle Morte’s court, a false copy of a woman. Jean-Claude was clearly more powerful and Juliette could feel Asher begin to succumb to the onslaught…until the other vampire redirected force and anger into the arena of his own powers, seduction and pleasure.

Even as Asher weakened from their struggle of pure power, he took another step closer to Jean-Claude and from the side, Juliette watched as the golden-haired vampire kissed his former lover. Jean-Claude’s power wavered and softened, and then he drew back abruptly, breaking the spell.

Asher closed his eyes briefly, the arctic blue disappearing for a moment. “I cannot let you go, Jean-Claude. But neither can I fight you.”

There were so many layers in those simple words and Juliette did not try to begin to fathom them. If Jean-Claude could not leave, then she, like Meng Die and Faust, needed to slip away. But how, when Asher’s gaze pinned her like an insect to the wall?

Jean-Claude seemed like an unholy vision, his own powers casting lovely and strange shadows on his face so that everything seemed in stark contrast. This was no Renaissance painting before her, full of soft and wondrous light, but the quick snap of a paparazzo’s camera. “ _Corbin_ challenges me, not you, Asher.” Juliette heard the words that he did not voice, as no doubt Asher did. _How could you?_

Asher bared his teeth as if in a smile, though it was anything but. “Do you really need to ask, Jean-Claude?”

He fell into stillness and though he did not breathe deeply as a human might, calming himself, Juliette had the impression that he was doing so all the same. “Corbin and Lisette wait for your arrival with Anita,” he said without inflection. “They have seen all my memories and will use them against you.”

Then he collapsed to his knees in agony, head in his hands, as Corbin exerted his control over his newly acquired vampire. Juliette couldn’t help it. She knelt to help him, her hands resting on his shoulders, before Jean-Claude’s hand snagged her upper arm and jerked her up.

He took her with him as they moved through the halls, the contact painful but jolting her out of the passiveness she had fallen into as she had watched them test each other. Scattered thoughts flowed across her mind and Juliette could not be sure whether they were his or her own—with his power so close to the surface, he was overwhelming her, washing out her own identity with his sheer presence.

One thing was for certain. Whenever his thoughts skittered back to the vampire they had left kneeling on the stone floors, there was only pain and hate.

 

*           *           *

 

Someone was kissing her as if she were Sleeping Beauty, in need of a prince to come wake her up. Anita opened her eyes, immediately aware that she was much stronger than before. Her body was healing and her temperature was probably spiking even as it did so. The lips on hers felt cool in comparison to her own heat, but maybe that was because they belonged to a vampire…

Corbin. Not Jean-Claude, not Asher, but the one trying to take over the city of St. Louis himself. Lisette was by his side, of course, his Gothic Lolita shadow. Her black lipstick was smeared around her mouth and now that Anita licked her own lips, she was sure she could taste it. Both of them seemed much calmer than before, as if they had just had a lot of fun.

 _With Asher_ , her mind inserted. Before she had time to dwell on the fact, several things struck her at once: no triumvirate. No ever-present connection with Richard and Jean-Claude. Richard was probably dead.

But as panic started to fog her mind, something large and warm brushed up against her, comforting and giving her its own strength. _Micah_. Whatever else, the wereleopards were not lost. Her Nimir-Raj had triumphed even as the wolf king had lost and through their combined link, she could feel the other members of the pard as well, led by their leader and the Kali and Dhurga, left and right hands of the Nimir Raj.

The leopards were no longer tame, no longer complacent. Weak as they might be, more than one had killed tonight. They all rode the edge of bloodlust, whether they remained in their human form or had shifted sometime during the night. She felt the razor sharpness of their claws along the edges of her consciousness, like barbed wire—not fencing her in, but defending her from outsiders.

It made the other absence just barely bearable. The metaphysical leopard that was Micah seemed to sense her loss, butting his head against hers and giving a fierce yowl to promise revenge. Her leopard rose, but it had nowhere to go. Her scent changed as well, the wild, musky scent of a predator masking her frailer human self.

Corbin seemed to sense the change, since he drew back and eyed her curiously. “I have heard that Jean-Claude’s human servant has her own power and holds the alliances with the weres. But this is not Jean-Claude’s wolf.”

Lisette drew closer. “She is the queen of the wereleopards here, my love.”

Corbin shifted his gaze to Lisette and the panes of his face grew harsh as his eyes darkened. “You would rule over them all, had Belle Morte not stripped away your animal to call.”

Lisette lifted a small shoulder in the slightest of shrugs, though it was by no means a casual gesture. It was a new piece of information about Belle Morte, that she could cut off a vampire’s power over the weres, but perhaps that was because Belle Morte herself controlled the wereleopards.

Watching Lisette, Anita knew that if she wanted a chance, she had to go for the female first. Micah was coming, but he would come too late. She could feel Jean-Claude again, but the vampire was closed off from her—whether because the triumvirate had been broken, or because Jean-Claude needed to be in his own skin at the moment, she could not tell.

The door slammed open and there was a reddish-orange blur into the room and Anita’s eyes could just make out as a vampire. The newcomer slammed into Corbin, fangs out and then plunging deep into the Master vampire’s neck, trying to drain him, at least weaken him, before he was thrown off.

Lisette put her hands on the back of Faust’s neck, but not as though she were exerting force to pry him off her lover. Instead, Faust let go of his own volition, though when his head came up and his eyes met Anita’s, she could see it could hardly be called that. There were no more smiles now, his version of the blank mask the other vampires used. His rich burgundy hair gleamed almost crimson. His mouth was bloody, the red liquid smeared all over his front, but Lisette had trapped him in Corbin’s net of fear and Corbin was rising, hardly worse for wear. The wounds were already beginning to heal.

But then Faust did something none of them expected. Lisette had the super strength of a vampire, but she was still light; nothing could change the weight of her girlish body. Faust threw himself across the room toward Anita, an inhuman leap, as if he were flying. Lisette’s hands had instinctively tightened around his neck, but he took her with him.

Both crashed down and Anita screamed as Faust landed half on top of her, bringing her almost nose to nose with Lisette, hanging over Faust’s shoulder like a devil. Her upturned oval face had changed completely and her eyes were a beady solid black now, her power clearly unleashed.

But not on Anita. Faust began to thrash, and Corbin walked up to the three of them as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. His inattention nearly cost him as yet another member of the cavalry came. Anita had never been so glad to see Meng Die’s porcelain doll shape, though now both of them were in the same room, she could see that Lisette was even smaller. Jean-Claude couldn’t be so far behind.

Faust shuddered and his whole body bucked desperately, taking both Anita and Lisette with him, Anita’s left arm swinging loose to backhand Lisette across the face before they both slammed into the ground. Lisette’s head bounced sharply against the stone floor and her strange, sharpened features actually looked dazed from the combined blow and the crash.

A moment after the stunning, inadvertent impact of Anita’s hand against Lisette’s face, she finally realized what Faust had done. He had torn apart the iron chains that bound her—an easy task for a vampire, but impossible for her, even with her increased strength from Jean-Claude’s marks. It was why Corbin and Lisette had been confident that she was completely subdued, at their mercy. Meng Die was still engaged with Corbin across the room, though it looked like Corbin was toying with the Chinese vampire, however poisonous of a butterfly she was proving to be. He obviously knew Lisette could handle herself.

She actually wished she could shift. As a wolf or a leopard, she could attack. But Anita had nothing but her bare hands and feet…she didn’t even have a knife, let alone a gun, and that was tantamount to suicide when faced with an enraged vampire. Against a human opponent, she was skilled enough in judo and kenpo to take down all but the strongest and fastest, but against a vampire of Lisette or Corbin’s caliber? Even being a fully marked human servant wouldn’t help. At least Lisette had let up on her amplifying and mirroring power, probably because the vampire’s primal rage had taken over for now.  

Lisette struck out and Anita ducked, defensive now, but knowing that she had to go on the offensive soon before Corbin finished with Meng Die and came after her. This was a good as an opportunity as she was going to get. Since she was injured, it seemed everything was half a second too slow—she slammed her fist into Lisette’s midsection with all her strength, only to find that the vampire had gracefully retreated.

Into Faust.

The vampire lacked his sword, but he had picked up the iron chains that had weighed down Anita’s limbs and were swinging them in a deadly black arc between Lisette and Anita. Instead of attacking for the head, his arm swooped down and the chains slashed across the back of Lisette’s knees, jerking her forward to the floor.

She recovered from her stumble before either of them could follow up with another attack. There was a smile on her lips, made more frightening by the smudges of black on her cheeks. Lisette looked like death warmed over. She also looked like she was enjoying herself. Bad, bad combination.

Faust rushed at her with a battle cry in some Germanic language, the sound chilling enough to bring up a zombie. Lisette let him slam into her as she calmly raised her hands to his neck level. She was maybe half the size of the other vampire, but in this case, it was the power differential that mattered—and Lisette was a Master vampire. Her tiny, bone white hands closed around Faust’s neck.

The snap echoed around the room, causing even Corbin and Meng Die to hesitate before they fought each other with renewed fury. Then Corbin maneuvered himself into position somehow and beheaded Faust with the sword he had been using to fight Meng Die.

Anita couldn’t seem to look away. Faust had been a part of the Circus of the Damned for as long as she could remember, from the very start. Like Richard. He wasn’t like one of the newer vamps from London and he wasn’t flashy, but there was constancy in his presence, even if it was one that lurked in the background. She had barely known the vampire but he had died for her and Jean-Claude. Even Meng Die, still flickering in and out of sight in her black leathers, had chosen to stand by Jean-Claude rather than join Corbin, who might have offered her a powerful place in the new hierarchy. They were the only two “free” vampires who had not been at the Circus during the initial takeover, and they were both direct descendents of Jean-Claude. Both loyal.

But _Asher,_ of all of them… No, she couldn’t believe it. In her deepest heart, she was sure that he was playing a game still, buying both of them enough time. Corbin could easily have killed her then, or made Asher kill her, but Asher had played both of the lovers, appealing to their need for manipulation and games. They were vampires of Belle Morte’s line and victory was hollow without the most subtle and beautiful intrigue.

Lisette started toward her and Anita backed away, adrenaline surging through her veins and overriding whatever mental tricks and fears that the female vampire might have been projecting. Jean-Claude couldn’t be far behind Meng Die and Faust, but it might be too late anyway. She wasn’t going to wait to be saved.

It was insane to try, but Anita opened herself up, freeing herself from every restriction she had put on her animator powers. It seemed to fill her up, hardly touched at all—it had been a while since she had raised a zombie, given that the past few months were one unending crisis after another. She could feel Lisette in her head, an achingly old power, pulsing with centuries of force.

She seemed to sense it as well. “What are you doing?”

Anita flashed back to another time, when she had been saving Damian’s life. She couldn’t possibly be doing the same thing with Lisette, could she? Damian had not been a Master and he had been so close to death that raising him as a zombie vampire, or whatever he had become, was not too far of a stretch. Jean-Claude had been there as well, solidifying the link between Anita and Damian.

She reached out toward Lisette, suddenly needing to make contact. Not even to hurt or harm, but she ached to feel the cool power that was contained within that bone white skin. The force that animated Lisette’s body called to her as soon as she touched the vampire, flowing over Anita’s hand and up her arm.

Lisette shivered violently, her expression changing in a blink of an eye from malevolence to fear. “Corbin!” Her head turned toward her lover, blindly seeking reassurance. “It is true. She holds power over us.”

“I’m just getting started,” Anita whispered grimly. “You’re not surrendering before Jean-Claude gets here, are you?”

”I am not a zombie!” Lisette shrieked, turning the z into a long, drawn out hiss of anger.

It was as if Jean-Claude were suddenly there, his voice whispering in her head, just as it had when they had brought Damian back. _He is not a zombie, ma petite_.

“No,” Anita agreed flatly. “You’re not.”

Corbin finally seemed to feel the need to come to Lisette’s defense, but he had wasted too much time with Meng Die and now the vampire was not about to let him go without being killed herself. He broke from her and found his way blocked by a knife that already gleamed with blood. The petite vampire was an exceedingly skilled fighter, fast enough to give him trouble with her knives even against the longer reach of his sword.

“Necromancer,” Lisette named her, dead black eyes wide. The animating force was a nearly tangible connection between them now. Anita wasn’t sure exactly what she could do with it, but when Lisette tried to use her own powers, it was as if Anita herself had become a vampire—Lisette’s power amplified her own necromancy.

“Necromancer,” Anita heard again. For a moment she thought it was Lisette echoing herself, but no, the voice was new, shaky with fear. She turned her head a little, not letting up as both of her hands grasped Lisette’s wrists, refusing to let go despite the vampire’s weakening struggles. For an instant, Lisette’s hair flew over her face and blocked her view, but then the vampire’s head jerked back and Anita could see again.

There was a woman standing to the side that looked strangely familiar, as if Anita should have known who she was. Her eyes glittered with defiance and it was she who had spoken. The distraction was almost too much. Anita’s hold on Lisette began to slip—not her physical grasp, but her sense of the animating force that Lisette generated on her own, as a Master vampire.

The woman came towards them, offering something to Anita. When she didn’t release Lisette to take the object, the woman grabbed one of Lisette’s arms with one hand, shoving something at Anita with the other. “Take it!”

It was a gun—one that she recognized as being yet another little gift from Edward. She couldn’t remember what deadly concoction filled the hollow bullets, but she certainly remembered the spark in Edward’s baby blues as he basically told her it would kill even a Master vamp. Anita’s knees almost went weak with relief as she released Lisette, grabbing the weapon from the stranger in the same motion.

Suddenly the power flared between herself and Lisette. Anita almost lost her grasp on it altogether as Jean-Claude’s power stormed into the room with him, a chill crackle of electricity. Rather than going straight toward Corbin, he headed toward Anita and Lisette.

With an inhuman and yet not quite animalistic growl, Corbin broke free of Meng Die’s attempts to block him. “No! _Lisette!_ ”

Jean-Claude touched Lisette and shoved every last bit of power he had into her body, as if trying to explode her from the sheer force of it. Still connected to Lisette, Anita’s screams mingled with the female vampire’s until she felt Jean-Claude somehow disconnect the two of them.

Suddenly, she was alone in her own skin and with her own power. No one else except Jean-Claude, hovering on the edge just as he was right next to her now, having taken over holding Lisette—though he was doing more than just holding. A high-pitched wail came from Lisette’s mouth, the sickening snap of her bones still audible over Corbin’s roar of rage. Normally the sounds might have disconcerted Anita, but the vision of Faust collapsing was too fresh in her mind and broken bones would slow Lisette, but hardly kill her.

Jean-Claude tossed her aside to meet Corbin head on, his expression completely feral in a way that would have lingered in Anita’s nightmares, if she had seen it. But her attention was still focused entirely on Lisette.

“Not necromancer,” she said almost normally, the white noise filling her mind as she let herself slip into that calm, peaceful state. She shoved the gun against Lisette’s pretty head, movements loose and almost careless. She didn’t seem to be rushing, but then it felt as if time had slowed to a trickle. Corbin was still locked in his struggle with Jean-Claude, helpless to reach his lover. Surely he heard the click of the safety.

“Not necromancer, Lisette. Executioner.”

After all that had happened, it took only one squeeze of the trigger.

_Once, she had feared monsters. Now the monsters feared her._

 

*           *           *

 

It was clear to Jean-Claude that Anita had not expected everything to stop with her single gunshot. She seemed to stagger with the release of Lisette’s animating force, but then there was an immense and eerie silence in the room, broken only by her harsh breathing. Jean-Claude and the other vampires made no sound at all, despite all their exertions from the life and death struggles that had suddenly ceased.

Corbin had stopped everything the moment Lisette had been killed, effectively dropping even his shields and surrendering. It was unexpected, but Jean-Claude had not stopped to ponder Corbin’s actions. The vacuum of power where Corbin had once used everything he could to resist him meant that Jean-Claude went over and through him with the blunt efficiency of a tank. He completely rolled Corbin.

It didn’t even seen to matter at this point. Corbin went directly to Lisette even as Jean-Claude followed to where Anita stood shakily, still on her feet. She was staring at the red ruin which had been Lisette’s head, now beginning to bubble with growing force.

The gun Juliette had handed Anita had been one of Edward’s. As much as he hated the bounty hunter, Jean-Claude knew that the holy water bullets—holy water, like what had burned scars into Asher’s body—had saved them all.

For once, Anita let herself be comforted within the circle of his arms. She leaned into him, head resting against his chest, and he opened the vampire marks between them, checking to make sure all three were in place. He would need to reestablish control over the vampires that remained in the city, especially the other Masters. Some of those that were not master level would probably not waken when he called them again. It was always the very strongest and the weakest, newest vampires that were the victims when the Master of the City changed.

In the end, Corbin had not even come close. _Ma petite_ had been more than he and Lisette had ever thought they would need to deal with. She was no ordinary human servant, but they would not have believed otherwise, even with all of the rumors flowing out of St. Louis.

Master of the City and human servant. Was that all they were? Jean-Claude’s arms tightened around Anita and he heard her suck in a small breath, the tension in her body releasing minutely. Did she feel safe, he wondered, and if things had turned out different, would she have called his name as she died? Even as they stood together in their embrace, Corbin had drawn Lisette’s body into his arms, his head bent over her torso. From neck down, she looked untouched, except for the blood splatter.

There were few vampires who would have surrendered because of their partner’s death. Corbin had not even surrendered, but simply stopped. He was so focused on Lisette that he was not even driven by the need for revenge—was that what it should have been like, if Jean-Claude and Asher had truly loved Julianna? Corbin grasped what they had not: no amount of vengeance could bring back the dead.

Jean-Claude doubted that Corbin would even move to defend himself if he were to kill him now, and this was exactly what Meng Die stepped forward to do, hesitating only to look at Jean-Claude. Her knife was ready to behead Corbin; the other vampire’s sword lay beside Lisette, completely forgotten.

“No,” Jean-Claude said. Anita stirred in his arms, but could not see what he did: Corbin still on the floor, back bent over Lisette, offering the back of his neck to Meng Die. “Let him live.”

It was not mercy that stayed Jean-Claude’s hands, though Meng Die’s expression told him that she thought it was a mistake regardless of the reason. She did not even know how he had once suffered beneath Corbin’s leash. But he did not have to explain the cold logic that was behind his decision, and Meng Die did not understand that in the deepest level of intrigue, the things that moved not in the head, but in the heart.  

Jean-Claude glanced at Juliette and then looked at Meng Die. “Go find Asher,” he said, leaving it at that.

At the sound of the name, Anita looked up at his face, but the expression on Jean-Claude’s face made him look like a statue of an avenging god, a kind of frozen emotion. They were intimately touching, yet nothing of the sort was on his mind. She finally saw Corbin, who had not moved in all this time.

“He really did love her,” she said to Jean-Claude quietly, troubled. He understood why she spoke as if Corbin was already dead; the vampire’s presence seemed to have left the room, even though he was still there. “He was this badass, evil vampire, but he loved her with the kind of love that everyone wants and so few people get. I mean, look at all the books, all the movies, all the divorces. People everywhere desperate, and somehow those two really had it.”

Jean-Claude’s voice was remote, though his words should have been warm. “All vampires were once human, or did you forget, Anita?”

“There is nothing human left in most of the vampires I have met.” She shifted in his arms and he recognized it as a sign that she wanted to stand on her own, so he let go. “Jean-Claude, is Asher…”

“He betrayed us, Anita. You know he went willingly.” It was the last thing Jean-Claude wanted to think about now, but he did not want to remind her of Richard, either. Not until they had final confirmation of what had happened in his absence.

Anita’s gaze was unflinching, despite his rare use of her name, so it was he who looked away first. “I’m not sure how willingly it was, Jean-Claude. If he hadn’t bought us another dawn, another night, you wouldn’t have come back in time.”

“He left you to their tender mercies, _ma petite,_ ” Jean-Claude replied, striving to leach every emotion from his voice, the opposite of what he usually did. They were power tricks Asher himself had taught him, once upon a time.

“He gave himself to their tender mercies,” Anita corrected, voice sounding surprisingly husky. He did not expect the tears that filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “I trust him…don’t you?”

There was no answer he could give.

 

*           *           *

 

 **Notes** : This is unedited, so please forgive the typos. I used to have an awesome beta, Triscut, but since it’s been 3 years since she last betaed for me (entirely my fault, I stopped writing for ABVH), I’m not sure if she’s still around. The city might be secure, but there is still a lot of fallout from Corbin’s failed attempt. The next chapter, “Truth” is about the aftermath with Belle Morte, the Council, Juliette, Richard... **Please rate & review!**


	8. Truth

*This chapter is from December 10, 2010 and was originally posted at Pomme de Sang / Sourdre de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams.   All author's notes are old.  Please excuse any weird formatting issues that might show up; I've done my best to clean up each chapter but the html tags from my saved files are all over the place and are time-consuming to fix.*

 **Notes** : This chapter references **Chapter 4** in a significant way. I explained in my first author’s note that in music, a fugue is a brief theme by a single voice that becomes repeated in variations with other voices in contrapuntal accompaniment. In psychology, the term fugue describes a memory disorder in which one is conscious of one’s actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state. I’ve combined both concepts in this story via themes of memory and interwoven past/present events, history repeating itself with variations, etc.

Translations (same as from Chapter 4):

 _Je ne voulais pas te blesser –_ I never meant to hurt you

There are also a couple other French words that I didn’t bother translating, as I think you guys know the euphemism.

*           *           *

**T R U T H  
**

*           *           *

Things were not okay. The dull ache in her skull, the even worse _absence_ … Her whole body hurt, but her mind was curiously numb. Empty. This was when everything should have been sorted out and all the damage control done. She should be waking up in a hospital now, weak but alive, in pain but also certain that everyone was alive. This was when the adrenaline slowly faded and she found her way back into the arms of her lovers, able to actually feel safe again until the next time, the next crisis.

Anita huddled inside the marble bathtub, the scalding water reaching up to her neck. Micah was behind her and the steady pressure of his arms across her ribs, just below her breasts, made her aware of her own heartbeat. It was steady, strong.

How could it be?

She felt betrayed by her body, by the tears that wouldn’t even come to her eyes. She felt too hot from the water, but too cold inside, like nothing could reach her core. She felt as though she should feel something. Mostly, she was just numb.

“They’re doing the best they can,” Micah murmured into her ear, and then held his breath to suppress his own groan of pain as he moved a little. He had injuries that were too great for him to quickly heal and he was too drained to shift to help the process along. The water around them was pink. “Anita, there’s nothing you can do.”

How she hated those words, and the ring of truth to them. Her Nimir-Raj’s skin was smooth and slippery against hers, though the water was painful for both of them. It was just a quick solution to raise their temperatures. They fit perfectly together, almost the exact same size. Micah’s chest was melded to her back, his groin pressed against her.

Anita tried to call the _ardeur_ , but the desire wouldn’t come. She tried to reach for a connection that had been completely severed; she couldn’t even begin to _reach_. A completely clean break, so effective that it was almost like it had never been there. Her head throbbed with the knowledge that she felt this way because it had his last attempt to protect her from himself. It was like discovering, while she was trying to touch something, that she had lost her entire arm. Theoretically, it should have been her life, she knew. Theoretically, she shouldn’t have numerous strains of wereanimals running through her, either.  

None of the beasts would come. She spent so much time trying to suppress them, to lock them up in her own metaphysical self. She still tried anyway. She even tried… But Raina’s munin wouldn’t respond. She reached inside of herself and found only an empty husk. She had put everything she had into controlling Lisette with her necromancy; she couldn’t raise a squirrel if she needed to. She was left with nothing.

Richard was dead.

That wasn’t going to change.

For the first time, Anita could understand what some people wished when they wanted to hire her as an animator. She had the power to raise the dead, but they didn’t want a zombie. They didn’t want her to raise the dead, they wanted her to bring the dead back to life. They wanted a goddamn miracle.

She’d learned to recognize the look in their eyes. She wondered if she had that look in her eyes, now.

Nathaniel might be dying.

To his credit, Micah hadn’t tried to keep it from her, even though he knew that she was still reeling from Richard’s absence. He, out of all the wereleopards, had been able to make it back to the Circus of the Damned, only to find complete chaos.

Asher had been fighting Jean-Claude’s third, Requiem. It was unclear whether it because Requiem believed that the other vampire was still under Corbin’s control or because he had witnessed and believed in Asher’s betrayal. Did it really matter?

With their bond to Jean-Claude broken, some vampires had died, some had resisted a few that had come along with Corbin and Lisette, others had fought among themselves, unable to ascertain anyone’s allegiances. A few had gone wild with bloodlust and had started killing everything. Jean-Claude, with far too much to handle, had taken one look at the gravely wounded wereleopard when he had shown up and ordered Micah to take care of himself and Anita first.

So here they were, letting their bodies heat so that they could heal. Anita closed her eyes, dizzy with the temperature of the water and feeling sick from the smell of blood. The risk of continued blood loss was weighed against the risk of cold. Through Micah, she could just barely feel the pard. The connection was distant, weaker than she had ever felt it. Her leopards were agitated and hurt, circling around.

Nathaniel might be _dying_ , and she wasn’t even with him. She couldn’t feed him energy, couldn’t help him heal. She couldn’t feel him or Damian. She remembered what Jean-Claude had told her before—that if she didn’t have the power to wake him, Damian would just not wake up one day. Was it just that she was drained of power, or had the second triumvirate broken like the first?

“Come on, Anita.” Micah tugged gently, helping her up. He wrapped a towel around her like she was a child. She stood and held the soft cloth against herself while he cleaned himself up.

“I want to be angry,” she whispered, too soft for human ears, but Micah wasn’t human. “I want to be angry with Jean-Claude for leaving, with Asher for betraying us, with Nathaniel for getting himself hurt, and—God, I want to hate Richard for _dying_.”

Her Nimir-Raj wisely chose not to say anything, because there was nothing to say. He wrapped his arms around her again and Anita welcomed the pressure that told her he was going to be there for her, no matter what. What was happening out there? For once, Jean-Claude was as stressed as she was, maybe actually more. It took a lot to break the vampire’s calm. Though it was a comfort to feel him at all, the vampire had closed down most of their connection.

 _Ma petite_ , he whispered into her mind now, not sounding much steadier than she felt. _I will be with you soon_.

She thought that he had felt more of the backlash from the breaking of triumvirate—from Richard’s death. They’d always been tied together to begin with, before either of them had ascended in power and rank. Wolf to call and Master vampire—it was odd to remember that Jean-Claude and Richard had known each other before they had ever known her. Odd to recall that of all the other people in their lives, only Richard had glimpsed and relived parts of Jean-Claude’s memories the way she had.

Memories that prominently featured an inhumanly beautiful golden-haired vampire. _Asher_. While Nathaniel had been fighting and getting hurt, while Richard had been dying, Asher had been...

Things were not okay. Not this time. And in some ways, they would never be again. Her world was filled with monsters and it was a place where people died all the time, but she had beaten the odds so many times in the last few years. Bad things had happened, but the people important to her had been safe. She had fooled herself into believing that because they had all grown stronger, no one was in real danger of losing their life.

Survive on the front lines for long enough, and it was natural to forget to fear the immediacy and suddenness of death. They might be knocked down, but they got back up. She’d come to expect it, somehow. They might be taken to the brink of death, but they always managed to heal.

Well, until they didn’t.

*           *           *

_Once upon a time, there was a handsome young man, the only son of a French lord._

It wasn’t long before Jean-Claude understood the price of being Belle Morte’s lover. It had perhaps taken a month. The depravities were never hidden from the start, but compared to what Jean-Claude had experienced under Julian, his former Master of the City, what Belle Morte offered must have seemed like a reprieve.

Asher watched as Jean-Claude won hearts and covetous eyes all throughout the court, and wondered if Belle was just breaking in her newest toy gently. Jean-Claude was more than a little special, after all, for he held the _ardeur_. Asher’s jealousy had dimmed, but the relationship between Belle’s two favorites was still volatile. She did little things to increase the tension between them until even Asher didn’t know what he really wanted of his dark counterpart: to fight or to fuck.

The slick scars on that pale, smooth back mesmerized him, hinting at a story that he would have to draw out through pain or pleasure. The black fringe of Jean-Claude’s eyelashes made his every glance toward the golden-haired vampire seem coy. Slight touches, the curve of a subtle smile, the sound of Jean-Claude’s gasp as Belle’s hand drifted downward, fingers encircling him lightly—all of it left Asher hard, angry and wanting.

Oh yes, Jean-Claude was made for seduction almost as much as Belle Morte herself.

Asher watched him revel in his newfound powers, taking his rightful place in a bloodline based on pleasure, where the _ardeur_ , controlled or otherwise, was seen as a gift of art and beauty. He watched Jean-Claude become seduced by Belle Morte even as he seduced those of her court. Asher watched it all, and held himself back from voicing any warning.

Had he remained silent out of spite? Or was it that he was loathe to break the illusion? Jean-Claude looked at him as if he were his savior, as if by bringing him to Belle Morte, Asher had allowed him to enter a world of splendor. He was the knight who had rescued the peasant’s child, the prince that had woken Sleeping Beauty with a kiss.

So Asher kissed Jean-Claude instead of telling him to be careful and made it subtly known that Belle’s _other_ favorite was keeping an eye over her _newest_ favorite. He covered Jean-Claude’s body with his own, as if that would protect him and shielded him as best he could from the uglier side of his rise in status. In retrospect, Asher understood that Belle had been testing him all along, to see if he would speak. Nothing was so simple as in the fairy tales.

And then, as he had known she would, Belle Morte showed Jean-Claude the darker edge of pleasure—the kind that came in realizing how fleeting life really was.

Even Asher couldn’t fully recall what happened that night, and he hadn’t been completely under the double grip of the _ardeur_ as Jean-Claude had, awash in Belle’s power and his own. The things they did blurred together in a haze of hedonism and desire. There had been a pretty young woman, no more than seventeen. Her rounded hips had been enticing, her bare breasts and dusky nipples smeared with blood. Belle had chosen to watch as Asher trapped Jean-Claude between himself and the woman and even brought his own powers of seduction into play. Every moan torn from Jean-Claude’s throat seemed to be a pyrrhic victory, every rock of their hips together was a searing pleasure that drove them all to a greater insatiable frenzy. Even as Asher had felt himself going mindless with lust, Belle had not been satisfied. She would not let things end so soon, nor so easily. Jean-Claude was already crying out in release, trapped between the woman and Asher, when another alluring youth had been brought out.

In the grip of his own climax, Jean-Claude’s flesh hot, irresistible, and oh-so-willing beneath him, Asher had only noted through half-closed eyes that it was a handsome young man with the muscles of someone who had never known hunger. Gasping, shuddering, skin slick with sweat, Asher and Jean-Claude lay in a tangle of limbs as the girl was ordered to leave, the young man taking her place.  

Some part of Asher understood that Belle meant for this night to never end. Drink from the man and be ready for her, she had ordered them. Blood and sex, an endless and timeless cycle of hunger and lust, need and release. It was pleasure, sustained at such a peak for so long that it became near pain.

They tore sobbing cries from the youth, who was unable to do anything but succumb under the force of the desires they thrust into him. He was now a part of their games, now not. Their unholy mistress showed why she had been loved and feared as a pagan goddess. The night seemed to narrow down to only Jean-Claude, until he was a focal point of the lust that burned so bright and hot. Nothing else mattered except all the different ways Asher and Belle Morte could made him come—screaming, silent, begging, demanding, and every variation in between.

 _La petit morte_. Death was so easy.  

Over and over, a hundred little deaths until they left a limp, drained body between the three of them. The bite marks on the chaste skin of his wrist were clean. The marks of inhuman teeth there were precise, the flesh no more torn than necessary. That was when they still had some semblance of control. Then there were the other bites, from the hollow of the neck and the inner thigh, smeared with blood and the evidence of their victim’s own pleasure.  

With the first rays of dawn only minutes away, Belle finally released them from the domination of the _ardeur_ and left them, smiling like one of her leopards after an indulgent feeding of raw meat. Jean-Claude slept in Asher’s arms, head laid against his chest, as they faced another sort of death together.

Asher woke first at nightfall, pieces of memory floating up into his consciousness as he realized what it was that they had done. He thought of how Jean-Claude would be racked with guilt and self-disgust, how he had let the younger vampire walk straight into the trap Belle Morte had devised, a lesson about morality and mortality.

His hands moved over Jean-Claude’s back, stroking scarred skin as he waited for the dark-haired vampire to wake. With all the power he had gained from the _ardeur_ last night, it wouldn’t be long before he did. The handsome young man next to them would not, but Asher knew that it was too late to save Jean-Claude from the knowledge.

“Asher,” Jean-Claude murmured against his collarbone. His hands stilled, but the other vampire contorted his body slightly, encouraging him to continue the soothing motions. Asher reminded himself that he still had to ask about the slick, pale scars. “Last night…”

He finally raised himself up on his arms, gaze briefly connecting with Asher’s until curiosity flicked it away to the weight beside them. Asher watched it all, watched Jean-Claude take in the still chest, the multitude of bite marks. Watched him piece together the truth as he recalled with horror the fragmented lust from the night before.

And then he watched Jean-Claude remember something that Asher hadn’t even known, as his eyes took in the still, pale face.

One hand reached out to touch the clean jawline, tracing the smooth forehead, the aristocratic cheekbones. A lock of curly chestnut hair slipped silkily through shaking fingers.

“Sébastien,” Jean-Claude breathed. His face crumpled in pain. “Baz… _je ne voulais pas te blesser…”_

_Once, as a child, Jean-Claude had been bought to be the whipping boy._

*           *           *

He had lost many things over the dark years of his existence, but he had rarely almost lost everything. Maybe it was because he had so much more to lose now, Jean-Claude reflected, looking down at the woman in his arms. Practicality and ruthlessness were some of the traits he admired in her, as she more often than not did in him. If he had been more practical, less caught in the grip of emotion over past hurts, this might have all turned out differently.

He had been responsible for these people, and he had failed them all.

“You did the best you could,” Anita murmured against his chest, and Jean-Claude realized that he had said some part of that aloud. Even though he had closed down the connection between them, it seemed like she could still feel some parts of what he was feeling – or maybe she didn’t need his marks to understand him.

Micah had been calling the hospital but came back now, his expression transformed by relief. He sat on Jean-Claude’s bed, eyes on them. “Lillian says that she’s pretty sure that Nathaniel will pull through. Most of the rest of the pard are with him right now.”

Relaxing at the news, Anita let out a sigh. She tensed again just moments later. “Jean-Claude, I can’t feel Nathaniel or Damian. Am I pulling energy from them?”

The thought must have already occurred to Micah, because he didn’t look surprised to hear it. Like Anita, he looked toward the vampire. Jean-Claude kept his voice calm, his words unrushed. “If Nathaniel’s healing without help from you, then you can’t be, _ma petite_. Your own injuries are still severe. It is more likely that the second triumvirate you have formed has also broken.”

Better news than expected, but still not good. “You’ll have to bind Damian to you again then, or he won’t rise.”

Jean-Claude nodded. “Do not worry, _ma petite_ , I will blood-oath Damian to me again before the night is over.”

“Do you have enough power to raise the little vamps tomorrow, or are we in trouble again?” Even as she asked it, she realized that he was channeling his own power to her already, though not a whole lot.

“I can manage,” he said. “The trouble we face is not what you are thinking. I will need to reaffirm the status of almost every vampire in my kiss.”

She hadn’t expected Corbin to have gone so far. The duel with the Master of the City should have come first, before the blood-oaths, from what she remembered when Jean-Claude had last been challenged while she was present. Then again, it was stupid to assume vampires would play by vampire laws, though, any more than humans followed human laws. “Did Corbin and Lisette take them all under their control?”

“Not all,” Jean-Claude replied tightly, “but enough.” At that, Micah gave her a look that Anita didn’t really think she needed. She wasn’t the most diplomatic person in the room, but she could manage to find a way to ask the right questions. She turned a little in Jean-Claude’s arms, letting him know that she wanted to stand on her own.

Richard’s name went unspoken between them—that, too, was the practical thing. They could deal with grief later. A city full of potentially rampaging vampires needed immediate attention. There was another name that hadn’t yet been brought up, too, that was most of the ‘enough’ that had been mentioned.

Rather than tackle it directly, she chose a slightly different approach. Since it was Anita, Jean-Claude knew exactly where she was headed anyway, but appreciated that she was trying not to be blunt, in her own way. “I didn’t realize it then, but the woman who handed me the gun was a vampire, right? Who was she?”

“Yes, she was a vampire,” Jean-Claude began slowly. He was surprised that Anita had noticed the difference at all, considering the state that she had been in. “She came back with us from France. Belle Morte made her…a gift.”

Anita’s eyes narrowed. “She looks familiar,” she said, making it more of a question than a statement. “Do I know her?”

It was almost as good as saying _stop evading_ and Jean-Claude resigned himself to it. “Anita, Belle Morte set everything up, leaving her own hands clean. She also made sure that I would be distracted, too caught up in the past to be careful in the present.”

The fact that he had used her real name wasn’t lost on her, but before Jean-Claude could explain exactly who the woman was from his past, Anita’s eyes widened in belated recognition and confusion. “The portrait, and the woman from your memories.... She can’t be _Julianna_?”

Even hearing the name was still painful, after all this time. Jean-Claude shook his head. “Only related to her,” he explained softly. “Belle Morte chose her and turned her, and kept her as an ever present victim in the image of Julianna. She has kept her secret all these centuries.”

Anita looked shocked, though behind her, Micah’s expression was more concerned than surprised. “Has Asher seen her?”

“Yes,” Jean-Claude said emptily, without expanding on it. He stared above her, rather than look at her in the eyes, and she could see the blankness of his features.

She reached out with her hand and grabbed the front of his blood-stained shirt, hating that he was retreating into that cold stillness that vampires used when they didn’t want to give any hint of emotion away. “Well, does he know? Did you tell him that she isn’t Julianna?”

It was silent enough that Anita could hear her own labored breathing. Micah quietly left the room and she almost wished he hadn’t gone. “What happened, Jean-Claude?”  

Her voice was sharp enough to finally spur him to speech. “I have not spoken to him yet. He fought Requiem and both are injured, but will heal.” Jean-Claude’s hand came up to cover hers, where it was fisted in his shirt. “He is no longer bound to me.”

“I _know_ ,” she exclaimed. “I know what he was doing while Richard was fighting to his death. But, he did it _for us_ , because there wasn’t anything else any of us could do without getting killed immediately. So what if he’s no longer bound to you? You can blood-oath him again!”

“ _Ma petite_ , you underestimate just how much hatred he still feels toward me,” Jean-Claude said, looking anywhere but at her. “You hold _my_ memories, not his, and mostly only those that I have shown you. You have never seen us at our worst toward each other.”

“Jean-Claude…” Anita was speechless, but recovered quickly enough, surprise turning into anger. “How can you not trust him? How can you think he actually wanted to betray you?”

He took a step back from her, not caring that his shirt tore in the process, exposing the cross-shaped burn on his chest. “The day I was summoned before the Council was the anniversary of Julianna’s death,” he said flatly. “Belle Morte likely chose it to remind him of what he lost, because of me. Likewise, her _gift_ is somehow quite appropriate.”

Anita looked at him incredulously. “You believe he still blames you for that? That all this is, what—some kind of opportunistic revenge?”

“Well, the circumstances are certainly similar enough,” Asher said from the open doorway, Micah behind him. The golden haired vampire made no move to enter the room and his hair, as well as the shadows, veiled most of his face. “The past repeats itself. Isn’t that what you’re thinking, Jean-Claude?”

*           *           *

For the longest time, both vampires were so still that they could have been statues. Anita could tell that beside her, Jean-Claude had stopped breathing. It was almost as if they were two predators stalking the same prey, waiting for the slightest motion, so they could release all that killing intent. Even as metaphysically burned as she was, she could see that Jean-Claude’s eyes were bleeding a little, the pupil shrinking, though not yet gone. Anita locked gazes with Micah briefly and knew that her Nimir-Raj had deliberately brought Asher here, but didn’t know whether to kiss him or curse him for it.

“She isn’t Julianna, though,” Asher continued after a long silence. The ice blue of his eyes seemed even colder than normal. “Neither Anita nor the girl you brought could ever be Julianna. I suppose that’s why you weren’t late this time, were you?”

They were deliberately cruel words, meant to cut. The emotions in the room were a confusion of guilt and anger, so thick that Anita felt like it was hard to even breathe. Tension shimmered almost visibly, or perhaps it was simply the power of two Master vampires not quite enemies, not quite lovers.

It was too much. Anita crossed the room in a blink of an eye, stopping before the doorway. She could see from the state of his clothes that he had sustained injuries at some point, but they were healing, just as hers were. With the sudden thought of Richard and Nathaniel, Anita couldn’t stop herself.

“You’re okay,” she whispered almost in wonder. The vampire recoiled a little but she hugged him anyway, unwilling to let him go. She needed to confirm that he was all right. His arms remained at his sides, but neither did he try to push her away.

She saw his pale eyes flicker as he looked her over quickly, taking note of her healing injuries, including some that he had inflicted on her himself. Anita reached out to brush his hair back from his face so that she could gaze directly into his eyes, letting him know with her look that she knew that he had saved her life with what he had done—had maybe saved all of their lives, actually.

There had been a few brief moments when she hadn’t been sure, when she’d honestly believed that he was just looking out for his survival. It would have been impossible for her not to have wondered, and impossible not to wonder now if things might be different, had he chosen to fight then.

“But you did fight,” she whispered so that only he and Micah could hear. He cut his eyes away from her. “You just did it the only way you could. He just needs some time to see that.”

Asher’s gaze remained lowered, as if he were afraid to look at her in the eyes. Carefully, he stepped back, out of her reach. She let him go reluctantly. He looked up and past both her and Micah, his expression unreadable.

“Who is she?” He didn’t elaborate, but it wasn’t needed.

“The girl was given into my care as a gift from Belle Morte,” Jean-Claude answered from across the room, where he was still standing by the bed. “She was meant as a distraction and I did not want to take her, but she is of Julianna’s blood. Belle found her and turned her because of the resemblance, and then made her into a toy. When I saw her, she begged me for protection and in return, told me of the plot here. I could not leave her behind.”

The entire explanation was delivered in a blank voice and Anita looked uncertainly from one to another. Given that Asher was a few feet from the doorway of the room, the exchange couldn’t exactly be called a conversation. This was way beyond her ability to fix—she didn’t even know where to start. For this moment, she and Micah were superfluous, extra audience members in a private play.

“Her name?” It shouldn’t have been possible, but somehow Asher’s tone managed to be one of strained nonchalance.

“The same. But she can be called Juliette.” Jean-Claude hesitated; the silence stretched on, though it was probably only a few seconds at most. “I do not intend to keep her here. Asher…”

But he was talking to empty air. The entrance to the room and the hallway beyond was empty, save for Anita and Micah. Asher had already gone.

Slowly, slowly, Jean-Claude sat down on the bed and held his head in his hands.

*           *           *

 _There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess, but she must be a true Princess._ _So he traveled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found._

There were endless nights and games to play, endless entertainments to fill an endless existence. Like a blade with the two edges of day and night, Asher and Jean-Claude cut through Belle Morte’s court, their presence always radiant even among other vampires, their kisses always an aphrodisiac.

Jealousy was something that they had both put aside, because their existence did not allow for more than affection. Lovers came and went, a few staying longer than others, but the one real constant was that they were a matched pair, bright and dark, sun and moon.

Asher was his counterpart and Jean-Claude was Asher’s, the two of them bound by Belle Morte’s pleasure, always seeing in each other the benediction and curse of her favoritism. In the beginning, Jean-Claude still treated Asher as though he thought the golden-haired vampire was impossibly high above him. He offered himself to Asher as though he saw himself as unworthy of being an equal. Even when that slowly began to change, Jean-Claude remained somehow more fixated on Asher than anyone else.

Was it only because Asher had been the vampire who brought him to Belle Morte? It was as though the game between himself and Asher was somehow different from all the other ones they played. There was more of an edge, some darker hunger that was never quite satisfied. It wasn’t that Jean-Claude was needy, and yet he always, always somehow needed Asher.

It was when things had almost settled into some sort of unspoken understanding that Jean-Claude realized he had never been enough. What little he could offer Asher, the strange connection between them, sometimes on and sometimes off, was not the real thing. They were lovers but what did that mean in Belle Morte’s court?

Little by little, Asher was slipping away from him, and he didn’t know how or why or most of all, how to stop it. Slowly but surely, their interactions became nothing more than scenes from a play that their mistress was directing. Even when Jean-Claude used the _ardeur_ , Asher seemed to look right through him, until in the aftermath of their lust, Jean-Claude couldn’t even meet those pale blue eyes.

They had been ordered to seduce the Princess Anne-Marie, Mademoiselle de Valois. He would have thought that it was the princess who had captured Asher’s attention, but in fact, the princess preferred Jean-Claude’s darkness to Asher’s brilliance. Not that Asher was denied a place in her bed—hardly that—but he had never shown more than slight interest, despite her blue blood. No, it was someone else that Asher stole away to meet under the stars, and it was by chance that Jean-Claude discovered it at all.

As the princess slept, he had risen from the bed, intending to draw back the curtains on the balcony a little. The velvet had parted only a little, but Jean-Claude had stood transfixed at what was before him: Asher with a human girl in his arms, kissing her so passionately that every line of her body suggested she was moments away from climax. Indeed, she let out a stifled cry as Asher drew her body even harder against his, his hips shifting just so against her.

Such was Asher’s power, if he chose to use it. Jean-Claude had seen it a hundred times, perhaps even a thousand times, over the years, so why was this so different? She was a nobody, a lady’s maid, and Asher could take his pleasure and blood wherever he liked. Had been doing so from the start. There were some of his lovers that Jean-Claude disliked, but the same was probably true of Asher toward Jean-Claude’s lovers.

“Who is she?” Jean-Claude whispered into the cool night air, knowing the soft syllables would be dispersed before they ever reached anyone’s ears.

There was something in the way that Asher’s gleaming hair mingled with her dark curls. She rested her head against his chest and he caught a stray lock of her hair in his fingertips, smoothing it back behind her ear. Then he kissed her forehead, an action so chaste that it should have almost been ridiculous to Jean-Claude’s jaded, watching eyes, and yet—

Yet it wasn’t. Vampire and human, Belle Morte’s lieutenant and a lady’s maid…it struck him suddenly, the certainty that what he was witnessing was the bloom of true love, a concept almost foreign to him. He hadn’t thought of love in years, even before he had met Belle Morte. But these two, before him, Asher and this woman—they were like star-crossed lovers, the truth of it in the soft thing that Asher whispered in her ear, that even Jean-Claude’s superior hearing couldn’t make out. If he had always thought of Asher as a kind of prince, then the prince had finally found his true princess.

It shouldn’t have bothered him. Whether or not Asher had a heart, whether or not Asher gave that heart away—these things weren’t for vampires, much less the kind of vampires they were. He would always have Asher, in any case. Belle Morte had ensured that, by molding them into all but two sides of the same coin.

“You are in love with her,” he said two nights later, to the shadow slipping back into the room.

There was no denial. Asher lay down beside him, flat on his back so that he didn’t have to face Jean-Claude. They were not touching, but they were close enough that Jean-Claude could feel Asher’s warmth on his skin. He had taken blood from her tonight. He smelled like he always did, but now there was her scent, too.

“Her name is Julianna.”

_Then came the day when at last, the Prince found his heart’s one desire. She was Truth and Freedom and in the mingling of both was Love. Unlike all the others, she was different and real—because she was chosen._

*           *           *

Notes: **Please rate & review!**


	9. Counterpoint

All author's notes and chapter content originally posted on May 27, 2015 under penname Elysian Dreams

Disclaimer: This story is written for the enjoyment of the fans and no copyright infringement is intended.

 **Notes** : Yes, I’m back to finish this! This series has become a train wreck for me—I know I’ll hate the new books, but I find myself reading them every once in a while anyway, usually a few years after they’re published. Invariably, reading the book brings up an infuriating mix of nostalgia and frustration: it’s like a relationship gone bad and the magic is not just gone but actually annihilated, yet you see glimpses of what used to inspire such love.

I know I’m far from alone in feeling like this over the direction of the books and I feel like both PDS/SDS is more of an archive for what once was (a thriving fandom) than what currently is. But I’ve recently been rereading some of the early ABVH books - I own the first 11 in the original gorgeous covers, not the Saw wannabe inspired crap that they were republished with - which reminded me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place. Anyway, a quick reminder that this story is supposed to be set around _Cerulean Sins_ or _Incubus Dreams_ era, although I may have muddled things a bit with regard to the rotating cast of characters, especially some of the vampires that appear and disappear from book to book. I pretty much gave up trying to keep track of it all long before the color coded tigers, so yeah.

Also, I had to fudge the dates a little for Jean-Claude’s memory of arriving in America and seeing the Statue of Liberty (from Chapter 7) to work. In this story, Julianna dies around 1781 and Jean-Claude leaves for America in 1881, although that isn’t meant to imply that he stays in America the entire time until he meets Anita. The Statue is actually from 1886 and the inscription on the base from even later.

*           *           *

**C O U N T E R P O I N T**

*           *           *

It had been three days since Corbin and Lisette’s attempted takeover. More precisely, it had been almost seventy hours since the coordinated attacks on Jean-Claude and his allies that had left Richard dead. Anita hadn’t even ventured one foot outside of the Circus of the Damned in that time. Work was the last possible thing on her mind. She’d had three days’ worth of picking up the pieces and healing, but she felt like she was still stuck in a dream. It was partly because she was on a full vampire schedule, which meant rising around dawn and sleeping a little after sunset. Her sense of time was almost completely gone after being within the dark confines of the Circus for so many days.

The other part of it was all in her mind. She had played so many different roles before to those around her and still did. Animator, executioner, Nimir-Ra, lover, and leader—Anita was someone to everyone around her. She might not have had a wide range of skills, but she knew what she was good at and what she could do. Raise the dead? Of course she could, ever since her powers had manifested in her childhood. Track down a serial killer? That was fine, and she’d carry out the execution order, too. Create powerful metaphysical ties that shouldn’t be able to exist? Been there, done that, and she was still alive. Generally, she was in her forte with anything that involved zombies, guns, and death.

But when it came to relationships, it was usually up to everyone else to figure things out. The worst part was that despite the increasing messiness of her life and list of lovers, Anita thought she’d actually been doing pretty well before Belle Morte’s machinations—before Jean-Claude had left for France, before Corbin had ambushed her, before Asher had turned his back on them all, and especially before Richard. Richard, the one who had paid the ultimate price for them all.

Now her carefully balanced Jenga tower had toppled over and she didn’t even know how to start picking up the pieces. For so long, Richard had been a cornerstone of her life, even after he tried his best to shut her out of his life and vice versa. She was still reeling from his absence, but she didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in her grief. The triumvirate had been made of three people and even though she was the one who had once been in love with Richard, who had almost dreamed of a white picket fence with him, she surprisingly _wasn’t_ the one most affected by his death.

It was easy to see why Jean-Claude blamed himself for Richard’s death, even if Anita had never really understood all the complexities of their relationship. Whether Belle Morte had been the one to suggest it to Corbin, or whether the vampire had strategized it himself, Richard’s death had been orchestrated as part of Jean-Claude’s downfall. He had been targeted just because he was part of the triumvirate—just as a way of potentially weakening the Master of the City. Anita could feel the heavy pressure of Jean-Claude’s guilt and his anger over how meaningless Richard’s death had been. Their ever noble wolf king had been reduced to a pawn in Belle Morte’s game, and the very ties that Jean-Claude had created to strengthen all three of them had led directly to his death.

Worst of all, neither Anita nor Jean-Claude could avenge him. Through Jason and the other wolves, they had discovered that the pack had accepted the new Ulfric, Vincent Carter, who had won the challenge fair and square. Ambition wasn’t a crime in the world that they lived in—the world of monsters that Richard could never fully acknowledge that he inhabited. Richard had died because that was simply the way things worked and once he had been defeated, the wolves did not cling to concepts like loyalty in the same way that humans did. Just as Richard had once killed Marcus and become wolf king of the Thronos Rokke pack, so too had a younger and stronger challenger come along. As hard as it was for Anita to accept, none of this made Vincent evil or bad. It would have been so much easier if it were otherwise.

The mere fact that Vincent Carter had killed Richard and that the challenge itself had been part of Belle Morte’s scheme to depose Jean-Claude wasn’t a good enough reason for Anita to shoot him, no matter how much she wanted to. Corbin had merely used Carter to take advantage of the chaos that the timing of his challenge would bring, but the werewolf alpha had had no real involvement with the vampire. Killing Carter would just be murder, although it would almost be worth the satisfaction.

Thinking about it still made anger cloud her vision with a red haze and Anita’s temples pounded with a stress-induced headache. At least Sylvie, Richard’s second, had been able to exert enough control over the pack to prevent them from eating Richard’s body in the ensuing chaos and bloodlust. Memories of the night that Richard had challenged Marcus, of what exactly had happened after he had won, still made Anita want to throw up.

It was survivor’s guilt. She knew that objectively, but putting a label on her awful feelings did nothing to ease them. There was so much helpless fury in her that she felt like she would explode from it, so she dealt with it pretty much the only way she knew how to: shove it into a box somewhere deep inside her, lock it up, and throw away the key. For once, though, she knew it wasn’t bleeding over to Jean-Claude. He was dealing with enough regrets of his own.

As if drawn by her thoughts, the door to the room opened and Jean-Claude appeared. He looked both gorgeous and terrible, a combination that made Anita unable to look away. The emotional strain was there in the shadows of his eyes and the set of his mouth. Beneath his otherwise calm façade, she felt the burn of his rage like a barely contained wildfire. It had been a long time since she had felt afraid in Jean-Claude’s presence—not afraid of what he would do to her, but simply afraid because she could feel the vast expanse of his power, a pressure that had thrummed inside of her head ever since he had become a _sourdre de sang_.

“It is done,” he told her. “I have bound each of them to me again, after Requiem and I personally checked each for knowledge of the plot that Belle Morte set in motion.” He had been reestablishing control ever since the night of the attack, starting immediately with the least powerful vampires, who needed their connection to him to even rise at all.

“What will you do with Corbin?” The hatred that darkened Jean-Claude’s eyes at the mention of their prisoner matched what Anita felt and she knew his answer would be unsatisfying.

“Nothing, yet,” he spat. “He has lost everything dear to him, yet will not speak about Belle’s machinations, even though we all know who directed this. Corbin seeks to punish us for Lisette’s death by denying us the ability for true revenge.”

“There must be proof somewhere, some link to Belle Morte.” Anita clenched her hands into fists, sitting down on the bed only to prevent herself from pacing. “This is ridiculous!”

Jean-Claude shook his head in denial. “It is already clear to everyone that Belle was involved, _ma petite_. But without the evidence that we are unlikely to find, the Council will protect her if we try to move against her—and we are not strong enough to do so, yet.”

It was the _yet_ that had Anita sucking in a sharp breath, because the way that Jean-Claude uttered the bitter word made it a promise of death, an inevitable confrontation. One of these days, he would take down Belle Morte or die trying. He had suffered as a scion of her line for hundreds of years, but this time, she had truly gone too far. Belle Morte had feared his growing power and had tried to eliminate him from the game, but much as in the Greek tragedies of old, her attempt to circumvent fate had only set into motion her own destruction.

The bed dipped as Jean-Claude sat down next to her. Anita slipped an arm around him and leaned her head against his shoulder, wishing she were better at giving comfort. All she could offer was an anger to match his, a need to make Belle Morte pay for what she had done.  

The impotent, unrelenting rage that boiled inside of her suddenly rose up, along with a power that she was unprepared for. The broken strings of the triumvirate stirred, the connection between them drawing taunt, layered over the marks he had given her to make her his human servant.

“ _Ma petite_ , this—”

Jean-Claude never got a chance to tell her what was happening. Both of them gasped as they felt the power rise and rise, and then it broke—and pulled Jean-Claude right along with her into fear and memory.

 

_She was floating in and out of consciousness in spite of the pain, her cheek still on fire from Asher’s blow. The sound of the high, girlish scream of delight had jerked her back to reality when all she wanted was to escape into oblivion. She opened her eyes to see Lisette laughing, her mouth smeared bright red with blood, as she carelessly flung the body of a girl to the side with her disproportionate strength. Corbin was completely nude, aroused, and he pressed his bloody lover against him before lowering her to the floor. Anita looked away from his thrusting hips, tried to ignore the presence of the third vampire, the golden hair that shimmered faintly as Asher bent down to kiss Corbin’s neck—_

_Her gaze landed on their victim and the sense of recognition was a shock. Anita didn’t know the name of the girl, but she had seen her before, dressed up as the lovely assistant in one of the magic acts at the Circus. She couldn’t have been more than a year or two out of high school, and now her eyes were wide open and glazed with death, looking beseechingly across the floor to Anita. Her throat was a red ruin but the rest of her was still pretty and untouched._

_Asher moaned passionately and Anita jerked involuntarily at the sound, so familiar and yet so_ wrong _in the moment, desperately trying to block it out. Her slight movement drew Corbin’s attention, however, and he ceased his motions, whipping his head around to snarl at her. He had forgotten she was there, had forgotten she wasn’t dead yet._

_“Asher,” Corbin commanded. “Bring Jean-Claude’s little human servant here. We will feed from her, Lisette and I, and you too. Spread your gifts over us and we will drain her dry.”_

_Lisette writhed against her lover and looked over his shoulder at Asher, lips curling into a smirk. “Jean-Claude shall know that his human servant served to create the ecstasy that only you, his once-beloved, can give.”_

_A slight flicker of hesitation in Asher’s eyes, gone in less than a heartbeat, but even Anita had sensed it more than she saw it. Corbin’s gaze turned predatory and he left Lisette abruptly. Anita registered him moving toward her in a blur but then Asher intervened in the blink of an eye, scooping her up, and suddenly she was next to Lisette and Corbin too. Asher held her upright from behind, his arms around her waist, and the sight before her was terrifying. The air reeked of coppery blood, yet it didn’t completely cover up the scent of sex and lust._

_Anita shuddered and then screamed as fangs suddenly plunged into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, ripping and tearing through flesh. Her whole body seized up as she realized this was Asher,_ Asher _. His lips moved against her, his hungry mouth gulped down her precious blood with such gluttony that dizziness was already beginning to overwhelm her when Corbin and Lisette descended as well, and she knew this was it._

_She was actually going to die this time, and she wasn’t going to go down fighting. She was going to die as food and fuel for Corbin and Lisette’s lust. Asher had truly betrayed her; he had betrayed them all. He didn’t have a plan. He wasn’t playing a game to protect them. This was for real—this was terrifying, heart-stoppingly real. Corbin and Lisette were going to take every drop from her veins until her heart gave out and finally stopped pumping the blood to them._

_The arms around her waist kept her in place and she wanted to scream, but then a tidal wave of sheer pleasure washed over every cell and molecule in her body. Her vision turned dark and nothing hurt. There was nothing to fear, under the silken caress of his power. She forgot to breathe as bliss flooded her every sense. Some part of her mind mustered up the thought that maybe it was better for her to die this way, under the sexual gratification of Asher’s bite. Maybe Asher’s duplicity was his means of giving her a mercy killing._

_Then a tiny part of her was angry, but it was a weak and limp thing. She was still making excuses for him even as she was dying. How could she? This betrayal would break Jean-Claude’s heart as surely as it was breaking hers. Dimly, she realized she was being laid to the ground. Her vision gradually returned to her still open eyes and she turned her head enough to see Asher crawling on hands and knees to Lisette and Corbin’s intertwined forms. He covered their bodies with his own and brought them again and again to unrelenting ecstasy, brought himself to orgasm without even a touch, his seed spilling all over Corbin’s back._

_Anita closed her eyes and waited for them to return to finally drain her._

_She waited to die._

_But in the frenzy and high of Asher’s power, they never remembered._

 

“Anita,” Jean-Claude gasped as her subconscious released their metaphysical connection with a snap. Pain ricocheted through her mind as if the memory had been a mental rubber band. She looked at him and he looked every bit as shaken and sick as she felt. That, more than anything else, told her how bad it was.

“Did you see…” she slurred, tongue thick and fumbling. There were not enough words in the world to describe what had happened, and infinity of horror and fear in a few minutes.

“I saw everything.” He turned to look at her directly, blue eyes bleeding with power and fury, even as she saw him struggle to regain control. Still, his words were anguished. “Why didn’t you tell me, _ma petite_? Why didn’t you tell me what he did to you?”

She was at a loss for words, still processing what her memory had shown both of them. “I didn’t… Jean-Claude, I didn’t remember any of that until just now.” Anita touched the new scar tissue above her collarbone with trembling fingers; days ago, it had still been raw flesh, the white of her bone gaping starkly through. _Asher_ had done it. She had assumed all along that it was Corbin or Lisette. She had come so close to being drained to death and she hadn’t even remembered. “I think what Asher did with his power was the equivalent of being drunk to the point of blacking out and losing your memories.”

Up until now, every time she had mentioned Asher, Jean-Claude had shut down on her, his cold silence defeating her best intentions. Anita was afraid that her attempts would only make it worse, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying to intervene, not when she knew just how much both of her lovers were hurting.

Even though she’d tried to explain that Asher had sacrificed himself to save them, Jean-Claude’s views on the matter hadn’t changed. He still saw Asher’s actions as a betrayal of all of them—Anita, the kiss, Richard, everyone who had directly fought Corbin—but it was more than that, too. He saw it as a way that Asher had found to punish him for Julianna’s death. No matter what Anita said, that was what Jean-Claude believed.

But now…she didn’t know what to think. Anita shivered as she remembered once again the feeling of certain death, the moment when she had been sure it was all over. She hadn’t even seen Asher since he had walked out of the room three days ago, and she had repeatedly tried to find him. Was that why he had been avoiding her? _She_ might have forgotten, but he would have remembered it all.

“You said that you’ve bound everyone to you again. Have you brought Asher back into the kiss?”

Jean-Claude’s sudden stillness was all the answer she needed. She opened her mouth to protest automatically, to make the same arguments she already had. Her lover quieted her by meeting her gaze with a look so raw with pain, all of the words she wanted to say dried up in her mouth.

Was this punishment for Asher, or for himself? All Anita knew was that the past had come back with a vengeance to haunt them both, and she could do nothing about it except watch helplessly as they broke each other’s hearts.

*           *           *

Four hours later, Anita still hadn’t found Asher and all she had learned was that no one had seen him since the night before. Jean-Claude had neither tried to stop her, nor helped her efforts. Reliving Anita’s memory with her had deeply shaken him and Anita supposed that _he_ wasn’t even sure what he would do if he faced Asher again.

Once the shock had faded, she had at least been able to examine the missing piece of her memories with a more critical eye. At the time, she had been sure that Asher had really betrayed them. He’d almost killed her himself and then had done nothing to stop Lisette and Corbin from finishing her off. Or had he? Now that Anita could remember—and that was by virtue of _still being alive_ , after all—logic pointed out that maybe that _had_ been his only way of saving her.

Asher had stalled Corbin once when the vampire had wanted to kill her quickly, and that was by convincing Corbin that everything was under control and that he would be better served killing Anita upon Jean-Claude’s arrival. If Asher had tried to stall Corbin again, no doubt it would have raised the vampire’s suspicions. So Asher hadn’t tried, hadn’t even uttered a single word that could be misconstrued as a defense of Anita’s life.

Instead, what had he done? He’d essentially rolled Corbin and Lisette, with Anita almost as an afterthought, perhaps to keep her from panicking. He’d used his unique and terrible power to drown two vampires far stronger than him in such complete eroticism and pleasure that they’d actually forgotten to finish off their prey. Had Asher known that it was even possible? Had he merely thought to let her die in pleasure rather than in pain and fear? But whatever the truth, Asher had had no choice, and ultimately, when he’d gambled with her life and with his own too, he’d _won_.

It was the perfect example of the ends justifying the means, wasn’t it? They were all still here. Well, all except for Richard, and even Jean-Claude couldn’t blame Asher for the way the challenge had turned out. No, that was squarely the result of what Vincent Carter had done and in a way, the result of Richard’s stubborn refusal to accept what he was and what kind of reality he inhabited. Part of Anita rebelled in shame at the thought: to imply that Richard was complicit in his own death—he was _dead_ and in her thoughts, she was blaming him for it. It was wrong.  

But many things were wrong with the world and she had already spent too much time sleeping and wallowing in her angst-ridden thoughts. She needed to talk to Asher. She needed to find out exactly what had happened, in his own words. No more of this wondering and aimless waiting, the emotional cowardliness that made her hope that someone else would deal with this—Jean-Claude, or even Micah, or anyone else. Had Asher tried saved them or had he simply betrayed them? If she couldn’t find Asher to get the truth, there was only one other way that she could get answers.

Jean-Claude was in his office, finishing up a phone call. From what Anita overheard, he was making arrangements for Julie’s funeral, assuring whoever was on the other end of the line that all expenses would be paid by the Circus. Her mind stumbled over the unfamiliar name until she put two and two together and realized that it was probably the name of the magician’s assistant.

“I have to talk to Corbin,” she said when Jean-Claude finished, eliciting a frown.

“What for, _ma petite_? If you think to change his mind about speaking of Belle’s involvement, it will not work. I have tried, and spared no effort.”

There was something about the way that Jean-Claude’s voice glided darkly over those last words that made Anita think that torture had been involved. A few years ago, it would have bothered her and left her debating what was morally worse: if her sweetie did it himself, or delegated it to someone else. Now, she didn’t comment.

“I just need to see him,” she insisted instead, offering no more than that. He probably guessed at her intentions, but Anita counted on Jean-Claude’s reluctance to bring up Asher. Uncharacteristically shrewd, maybe, for her to do so, but _he_ needed answers too, even if he wasn’t willing to admit to it.

After a long moment, he nodded. “If you truly wish to see him, Requiem will take you. He should be back at the Circus in perhaps twenty minutes. I sent him to Guilty Pleasures on some business.”

“What are we going to do with him eventually?”

Jean-Claude lifted his hands slightly, spread apart in that Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing. “You would know better than I, _ma petite_. Thus far, the human law enforcement does not know of Corbin’s crimes, but he has killed innocent people in his eagerness to get to us. There would certainly be an order out for his execution.”

Well, put that way, the answer seemed pretty obvious, if rather…simple. Anita still couldn’t resist asking. “What would you do?”

Her lover’s eyes burned with unholy blue fire when they met hers. “Death is far too easy and quick for what he has done,” he said slowly. “He wants to die, therefore I would have him experience eternity without Lisette by his side, knowing that he, in his ambition, killed her as surely as you did. But justice and vengeance alike belongs most to his victims.”

Not really an answer, then, but did it matter? Corbin had done the damage he had done, and Anita expected to feel hatred toward him, but mostly she was tired. If she felt anything, it was, unexpectedly, pity. He and Lisette had been monsters in the truest sense of the word, their capacity for cruelty and sadism knowing no bounds. But the only thing human about Corbin, his love and devotion to his other half, had broken him utterly.

Human or vampire, perhaps that was punishment enough.

*           *           *

The dungeon was still part of the underground areas below the Circus, but Anita had never known that it existed until now. Having Requiem as her escort—moody, dramatic, depressing Requiem—actually just made it even more unnerving. There was an actual dungeon below the Circus and of course all the vampires had acted like it was a given, something that reminded her acutely that they were mostly from eras where having a dungeon was as necessary and appropriate as a dining room. Even knowing that Jean-Claude had almost certainly inherited the dungeon from Nikolaos, the previous Master of the City, didn’t make it any less creepy.

It was obviously also an area that Jean-Claude hadn’t bothered to renovate with electric lighting, so both she and Requiem were carrying honest-to-goodness torches, as if they were on some kind of Medieval Times show tour. They were battery-powered torches, but still. At least Requiem had found a camping lantern to add to their inadequate source of light. It was still dark, cold, and drafty, just as Anita might have expected a dungeon to be, and the fact that she couldn’t see the end of the hallway put her on edge.

So when Requiem suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, made a sound very much like a snarl, and whirled around to face her, Anita almost jumped out of her skin.

“Stay here!” he commanded, and then he was gone with vampiric speed, leaving Anita cursing as he disappeared from her sight. She hesitated just a moment before drawing her gun and taking off after him, almost crashing right into a solid stone wall as she found out why she hadn’t been able to see very far: the passage ended with an abrupt turn.

Requiem was there in front of the last cell and light glinted off the tarnish on what must be silver-reinforced bars. The angle of the door was wrong though—it was open. Her heart jumped into her throat as she approached, expecting the worst.

“Now you are at my utter mercy,” she heard from inside the cell, the voice distorted with a cold rage but still unmistakable.

 _“Asher!”_ She didn’t have time to say anything else before Requiem dropped both lantern and torch and lunged inside the dimly lit cell. The sudden shifts of light didn’t stop her from following him.

Even with her human nose, she could smell the blood and she knew that was what had alerted Requiem to trouble. The dull, sickening sound of metal chopping through flesh and bone reached her ears even as her eyes adjusted, and then there was the unforgettable sound of something heavy thumping to the wet floor and rolling to a stop somewhere near her feet.

She didn’t want to look down but she did anyway, and fought hard not to vomit as her gorge rose. Corbin had been attractive, once, before his head had been separated from his body. Before his own blood coated half of his face and one of his open, unblinking eyes. Anita looked away, trying to breath through her mouth, to shut out the smell of death and blood, so much blood.

There was a flash of movement as Requiem latched onto Asher’s arms but there was no resistance. The golden haired vampire allowed himself be pulled away from the rest of Corbin’s body. He still tightly gripped a broadsword in both hands, the entire length of the blade coated in blood so that it didn’t even seem to have been made from steel. She stared at it, unable to stop the most random thought: where had Asher even acquired it? Was it his, or borrowed from another vampire, or stolen from a museum…

Her line of questioning were interrupted by Asher’s laugh, the sound broken and horrible. “Too late, Anita. Everything is too late now.”

She could see that it was. Asher…Asher had been in the cell for a while, at least half an hour, if not more. He had done almost everything she would have told a rookie marshal to do in order to ensure a really powerful vampire’s death: decapitate, stake and remove the heart, and burn all of the body parts. He hadn’t gotten to the burning yet and sometimes to be extra sure, Anita also sprinkled the ashes into different bodies of running water.

It helped to think of it as an execution, as something she might have done herself, if she had been given the order. Wasn’t it only a few hours ago that Jean-Claude reminded her that Corbin deserved execution for the crime of killing humans alone, let alone everything else he had done? And she couldn’t deny that it was a relief to know that two out of the three vampires who had nearly killed her were dead themselves.

But why would Asher do this, when it went against Jean-Claude’s decision to keep Corbin locked up?

Anita didn’t realize that she had spoken her thoughts out loud until Asher caught her gaze through the veil of his hair and answered her. “He has always sought to destroy us, again and again. You cannot understand, unless Jean-Claude has shared his memories with you. This was only the final chapter of a long history,” he said. “And now it has finally ended.”

With the way he sounded, she wasn’t sure if he was speaking of Corbin, Jean-Claude, or both. There was a certain resignation in his words. Had he given up hope that their relationship could be repaired? With Corbin dead, the answers she had wanted would have been gone with him, but here was Asher himself.

“Go ahead and ask, Anita,” he said softly, his words punctuated only by the dripping of blood from the tip of the sword held loosely in his hand to the floor. “Did I betray you? On the bitter anniversary of Julianna’s death, did I take the opportunity to carry out retribution, betray Jean-Claude, and save my own life, all in one fell swoop?”

She recoiled at his words although they held no bite, nor had Asher imbued his voice with feeling as he could have with his power. Anita was left staring at him, beautiful and broken, wrapping himself in the remnants of cold pride.

“No,” she said, and then repeated it again when he seemed to interpret it as her refusal to ask, rather than an answer to the questions he had brutally posed. That was what they had been doing to him, Anita realized, for the last three days. Jean-Claude hadn’t asked, hadn’t even confronted Asher directly. Yes, she knew it was out of love, but also out of fear that the answers might be more than they could handle. But Jean-Claude’s silence, Anita’s complicity in it, and his avoidance of oathing Asher to him once more—all of it pointed toward an ugly truth.

“No,” she said for a third time. “You didn’t betray us. We betrayed you.” That was all she could get out before her throat closed up and she was choking on tears she didn’t deserve to cry.

Asher turned away. “I knew what you would think. I had to make you believe it, or it wouldn’t have worked. I told myself to expect what would follow, to expect this, if luck was on our side and Corbin was defeated. It didn’t matter if you hated me, as long as you lived to do it.”

“During the time with Corbin, I still trusted you, until you bit me and…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish.

He was quick to realize what she meant anyway. “You remember it now.” He threw down the sword in a loud clash of metal and stone, not bothering to hide his disgust and self-loathing. “When I look into your eyes, I see your fear, Anita.”

The accusation provoked anger in her. “That’s not fair, Asher. You have to give me some time to get over it. I can’t control my reactions just like that, not after—after you almost killed me, even if I know you did it to save my life. Give _us_ some time. Jean-Claude went through that memory with me.”

He flinched and she moved closer to him, shooting the silent Requiem a sharp look when the vampire would have intervened. Anita gently took Asher’s blood splattered hand in her own, the hand that he’d used to wield the sword.

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” she blurted out in realization. “Even after becoming _témoin_ , even when you are second in command to Jean-Claude, you never are sure of your place with him. In his heart.” It was rare that Anita ever had such a flash of insight into relationships, but as soon as she said the words out loud, she regretted it. One glance at Asher and she could see the humiliation in the way he shrank back into the shadows, and while Requiem refrained from commenting, he could hardly pretend that he hadn’t heard every word.

“Anita.”

She had been so focused on Asher that she hadn’t sensed anyone else arriving behind her at the entrance of the cell. That, and his use of her real name, threw her off. It took longer that it should have for her to realize that the Master of the City of St. Louis had heard her every word, along with Asher.

*           *           *

When she turned to face Jean-Claude, Anita saw that it was worse than she had even thought. Jean-Claude had also brought Jason, Micah, and two other wererat guards that Anita knew only by name. She turned accusing eyes toward Jean-Claude, automatically reaching for the bond between them to ask why he hadn’t given her a head’s up, and then winced when she realized the bond was still unreliable, frayed from the breaking of the triumvirate.

“I killed Corbin,” Asher said, stating the obvious in a way that made it sound as if he were daring Jean-Claude to ask why.

“So I see,” was Jean-Claude’s short reply. Anita winced. At least her Nimir-Raj met her embarrassed gaze, although Micah promptly started to excuse himself after seeing there was no real threat.

Jean-Claude and Requiem exchanged some rapid-fire French that was beyond Anita’s abilities to follow, and then Requiem and the wererats carried Corbin’s remains away, the vampire almost nonchalantly swooping down and grabbing the head by the hair as well. Jason left with them, looking queasy at the sight of Corbin’s decapitated head swinging from Requiem’s hand. Almost as fast as they had all come in, everyone cleared out the cell, leaving only Anita, Jean-Claude, and Asher in tense silence.

“Come,” Jean-Claude said to them, so Anita followed him out of the cell, only stopping when she realized that Asher had not moved. He was looking down at his bloody hands, head bowed, and her heart ached for him.

Jean-Claude went back to him until he was standing right before Asher, and still the other vampire did not look up. Anita watched as Jean-Claude reached out and cupped Asher’s face in both hands, thumb brushing golden locks to the side, his fingers infinitely gentle and tender as they traced over whole and scarred skin alike. He tilted Asher’s face up and waited patiently until those startling husky blue eyes finally met his gaze.

“Please, Asher,” he whispered, and Anita shivered, the two syllables of their lover’s name sounding like a lonely caress. His eyes were shadowed with memory. “We are stronger than this. Come with us.”

*           *           *

_Once, to watch the hundred years of Jean-Claude’s enslavement pass was to admire the art of bending and bending but not breaking. It was to watch him walk on the very fine line between lucidity and madness, wondering whether he finally had reached the limits of his endurance this time._

Asher had been living in Amsterdam for nine years when Belle Morte’s summons had come, along with a fancy hand-delivered, though vaguely worded, invitation. His mistress was old-fashioned in that way, scorning the leaps and bounds of technological innovation that the humans had achieved in the last century. It seemed like every year marked another important discovery in science, another breakthrough in engineering.

The inexorable march of time, however, made little difference to those like him. To vampires, the world changed both very quickly and very slowly. The years were slow, because they existed without changing themselves, in a way doomed to play out the same games of power and politics, over and over to no true end. The years were fast, because to someone to whom death and aging is not seen as inevitable, decades blur into one another.

In the back of his mind, though, some part of him had kept track, so the date on the invitation was no surprise. His return to France was laughably easy. A business trip, he told himself. That was all this was. He attended the gathering only to see through the end of things and tried to ignore how many familiar faces stared in pity and disgust at his own, as if he had needed a reminder of why he had left.

There were several vampires, though, he had not seen in the last century, as well as new faces, the weak push of their power telling him what their appearance could not: these were the recently made, who would have only heard tales of him. If indeed they still spoke of him at court, other than of how he had fallen from grace and out of Belle Morte’s favor.

Judging by the throngs that had shown up, everyone was eager to see the potential drama from this night. They filled the court to overflowing; Belle had chosen to preside over a vast space edged by Greek columns. How many of them had Belle Morte called back to France for this special occasion? Once, Asher would have been in the midst of them, confident in his power and position. Now he lurked in the shadows, on the edges, looking but not participating, though more than one fool had approached him, avid curiosity burning in their eyes.

Belle Morte let the anticipation build throughout the night. Most of the assembled knew that this had something to do with Jean-Claude, but Asher guessed that very few knew what, exactly, was being honored: the end of a hundred years. Unlike him, they would not know or care when exactly it was that Jean-Claude had sold himself to Belle Morte in order to save his life. It was a hundred years to the day since Julianna’s death, since Asher had been tortured with holy water, since Jean-Claude’s bargain with Belle Morte had been struck. Time eases all things, Sophocles had said, but if it had been so very long ago, why were his memories still so fresh?

When Jean-Claude finally appeared and made his way to Belle Morte’s side, every eye followed his every movement. Asher’s path had not crossed Jean-Claude’s for more than twenty years, so seeing his sapphire-bright beauty and familiar grace was almost a physical shock. There were no outward signs of his hundred years of brutal servitude, of course, no marks to show the abuse he had suffered. Asher wasn’t sure why he had expected otherwise.

Belle had some pretty words prepared about Jean-Claude’s newly bestowed freedom, words that Asher ignored except to acknowledge that this was why their _sourdre de sang_ had called nearly her entire bloodline back home: never one to let such occasions go to waste, she wanted to remind everyone that true freedom would never be theirs. Jean-Claude had both risen to the highest glories in her court and sunk to the most hellish depths. They were all her puppets, even as Masters, and it was merely a question of what degree of control she chose to exert over them.

Hours passed in a blur of bright lights and revelry, underlaid with the political maneuvering that Asher found so tiresome these days. Belle Morte caught his gaze with an all too satisfied smile but was content to let him be rather than force him to approach her. Eventually, Jean-Claude disappeared from sight and Asher made his way to one of the side exits, feeling acutely ill at ease and wanting nothing more than to leave France as soon as he could.

He flung open a door and stopped dead in his tracks, his ears assaulted by the sound of Jean-Claude’s whimpering, his eyes taking in the sight of his former lover writhing on the marble floor in an agony of pain or grief, he wasn’t sure. Another vampire stood over him, stirring some faint memory. Constantin? No, something…shadowed. A raven. _Corbin_.

Asher instinctively took a step back, fingers fumbling for the edge of the door to close it. So many times in the last century had he turned away, left Jean-Claude to be tortured as his master or mistress saw fit. But something stayed his hands this time and he took a few steps further into the room without realizing it. Jean-Claude was caught in the grip of fears so strong that he did not seem to realize that Asher was even in the room.

“Let him go,” Asher bit out to the vampire. “He is no longer yours to torment. He has served his century.”

Corbin seemed disinclined to heed his words, his eyes fixed in concentration on the dark haired vampire at his feet.   Asher didn’t think, just _did_ —it wasn’t that he intended to intervene, but somehow he found himself taking another menacing step forward toward the other vampire, and Corbin finally looked up. He studied Asher for a moment before deliberately stepping over Jean-Claude like he was nothing but trash.

One shoulder lifted in a careless shrug and his words floated back to Asher’s ears even as Corbin left. “He is too broken to be of interest, anyway.”

And then there was only Jean-Claude, freed of Corbin’s control of his mind, looking up at Asher with such a mix of transparent emotion that Asher looked away immediately, but not before he saw the brief flash of hope, chased by humiliation, blanking into nothing at all. It was the nothingness of despair, of having nothing else to lose. Asher turned in a swift motion but Jean-Claude’s voice arrested him.

“I can die now,” he said with no inflection whatsoever.

Was he addressing Asher or talking to himself? Asher still didn’t turn to face him but neither could he force his feet to move. The ache in his chest and tightness in his throat was horrifying and he let it change instead to scorn, chased by the bright edge of anger. What pity did Jean-Claude deserve after making his choice that night a century past, when he had left Julianna and Asher to save his own skin?

There, now he could speak. “I am surprised that you are still alive after these hundred years. But then you are a survivor, aren’t you?”

Jean-Claude didn’t deny it, only repeating the four words as if they were a miracle. “I can die now.”

It made Asher irrationally angry, given that he had asked Belle Morte many times for Jean-Claude’s death, and had been refused every time. “Do you think that your death will bring her back? If that were true, then you should have killed yourself long ago.”

“You don’t know,” Jean-Claude whispered into his hands. He had curled up into a ball on the floor and he was visibly shaking. “I had to finish the hundred years before I can end it.”

He should walk away right now, should leave Jean-Claude to his misery and pathetic self-pity, and yet Asher couldn’t. “You lived through every torture, even when Lucretia skinned your back, you allowed yourself to be raped by Raffaelo in front of his entire court each night for seven years, you even let a _human_ , a mere sniveling lordling use you as his catamite for three months and—you— _you—_ ” Asher stopped himself abruptly. He had heard so much over the years and he shocked himself now by remembering in such detail nearly every year of Jean-Claude’s hundred.

“And yet you would choose death _now_ , when you are finally freed?” he ground out between clenched teeth. He hadn’t thought it was possible for him to hold more hate for Jean-Claude in his heart but This. Was. Intolerable.

Jean-Claude actually cowered before his rage and Asher’s heart cracked into two to see it, Corbin’s words drumming through his head. He had never wanted—wanted _this_ , had he, to satisfy his need for vengeance? But he _had_ , in a way. For years, he had both anticipated and dreaded that the next whisper of gossip he heard would be that Jean-Claude had finally given up and sought oblivion. Year after year, rumors came of how Belle passed her former favorite around like she tossed fish to the feet of her hungry leopards, and Asher had wondered savagely if this would be the end of it. Now, it seemed that day had come and this creature before him, this broken shadow of his former lover, was finally begging for release. Julianna…Julianna would have wept to see her dark moon to Asher’s golden sun reduced to _this_.

“You would have had to fulfill the debt.”

Asher almost thought he had heard wrong, but no, the words had come from the vampire before him, although the voice was entirely unrecognizable. “What have _I_ anything to do with this?”

Jean-Claude finally lifted his head, some measure of lucidity returning to his eyes, though hints of madness remained. “Those were the terms of my contract with Belle Morte. One hundred years in exchange for your life. But if I should die before I completed it…then you would have to fulfill the remainder of those years in my place.”

He couldn’t think, couldn’t let himself understand that—no, that couldn’t possibly be the reason why Jean-Claude had endured—no. Asher fell to his knees before Jean-Claude and his dark counterpart flinched back, the movement slight but Asher cherished the pain that came with it. Yes, he was ruined. Yes, his face was the work of a vengeful devil, the scars left by holy water a constant reminder that he was a damned creature.

“No, Asher, _Asher_ , you are still beautiful to me—” and then Jean-Claude was pressed against him and Asher didn’t know what to do, the contact a pain almost akin to what he had felt when he had watched his human servant burn to death, screaming as the flames engulfed her.

Jean-Claude was sobbing like a child, great gulping gasps of air that his vampire body did not need, but that his too-human heart could not do without after a hundred years. Asher threaded his fingers through Jean-Claude’s thick black curls and rocked him, holding him tightly so that he would not shatter. He knew without words that Jean-Claude’s mind was as fragile as spun glass in this moment, so he soothed and comforted even as he remembered the night a century past that had led to this.

Eventually the sounds of raw pain softened, taut muscles relaxed. Then Asher was drawing away finally, for good, his heart a mess of hatred and anger, pain and regret, bound together by too many memories that he could not let go. He stood up and Jean-Claude reached for him, hands lifted to grasp for something that had already left.

“Please… I lived for you.” There was nothing left in Jean-Claude’s gaze but a hollowness so empty and absolute that Asher felt like he was gazing into the abyss.

“You should have died instead,” he told Jean-Claude almost tenderly, and even Asher didn’t know exactly what he meant by it.

_Once, they were lovers, they had loved. Three nights later, they would have their last meeting by chance in Belle Morte’s garden. Then they would not see each other again for nearly another century._

 

*           *           *

 **A/N: Please review!** Sometimes it feels like I’m writing into some kind of void and I wonder if there is anyone even reading. There will be one more chapter left before this story is finished and I’m working on it now, but getting feedback is always encouraging, so please share your thoughts.

  


	10. Coda

**First posted at the fanfiction archive Pomme de Sang under penname Elysian Dreams on August 8, 2015*

Disclaimer: This story is written for the enjoyment of the fans and no copyright infringement is intended.

 **Notes** : I’ll be upfront about it—I really, really hate writing endings and I never feel like I can get them right, which leads to a lot of procrastination. I’m always worried that I’ll write an ending that will ruin the story and/or which won’t do the rest of it justice. To be honest, I never actually thought I’d return to this story, but I think it’s better to have finished something than to leave it incomplete, even if I’m not completely satisfied with the writing. I worked on this on and off for months and lost count of how much I deleted and rewrote. It was a lot. Sadly, this will also most likely be my last Anita Blake story as I’ve really fallen out of the fandom.

Writing _The Art of the Fugue_ has definitely been an experience. It’s a weird story to begin with, half historical vignettes and half a melodramatic “what if” scenario, not to mention I wrote some of the earlier chapters as PWP NC-17 slash writing practice... In other words, it’s a mess, but mostly an intentional one. It’s also been hard to write because I made it so focused on relationships and feelings rather than action. There were some parts that I was proud to share and some that I definitely wasn’t, but in the end, thank you for giving this a chance. Every review has inspired me so much and all my thanks go out to you, the reader. Without you, there would be no story.

 **Reminder** : This story is rated NC-17 for a reason! I did mention PWP writing practice, right?

 

*           *           *

**C O D A**

*           *           *

 

Anita followed Jean-Claude into the pitch-black bedroom, intensely aware that Asher right behind her, though he was as silent as a ghost. She heard a light click and soft light illuminated the room from the small lamp on the bedside table. It was just enough for her to see Asher close the door and lean back on it, coming no further into the room. In fact, their golden haired lover looked as if he would rather be anywhere else on earth than here with them. Her heart twisted in guilt and shame knowing just how much he had been hurt by their lack of trust in him. She drew in a deep breath and tried to clamp down on her emotions when Asher finally lifted his gaze and stared defiantly, if also bitterly, at Jean-Claude from across the expanse between them.

“I acted directly against your wishes when I killed Corbin,” he said, his tone flat. “I know what it is that you wanted from him, why you would have stopped me. Death is quick, regret is not. But if I am to be exiled from your Kiss, then let me at least go knowing that he can never threaten you again.”

Anita sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of exile, but Jean-Claude did not otherwise react. She waited for him to say something, to tell Asher that he had no intention of letting him leave the Kiss, but what else was Asher to think when Jean-Claude had one by one taken every vampire back to him except for his own _t_ _é_ _moin?_ She looked at Jean-Claude but still he hesitated. Asher’s beautiful lips twisted into a sardonic, self-hating smile and it was this that finally dragged Jean-Claude out of his daze.

 _“Mon chardonneret,_ ” he murmured as he crossed the room, back to where Asher stood by the door. Some of the tension between them eased, as if the old endearment sparked memories that put them back on familiar ground with each other, despite it all. There was still anger and so much hurt, but the edge of it softened, both more willing to listen. Anita released a breath she hadn’t realized that she was holding and sat down on the edge of the bed. It dipped again under Asher’s weight as he took a seat next to her, Jean-Claude still holding his hand after leading him like a child to them. Rather than join them on the bed, Jean-Claude remained standing, unsure that Asher would accept even that small intimacy.

“I am more than sorry, Asher. I should not have doubted you. I should have known that you would never consent to join Corbin.” Jean-Claude turned away and paced a few steps away, unable to look at the vampire that he was speaking to. “I did trust you—I still do. I trust you more than my actions have shown and that is my fault. But after being in Belle’s court again, after seeing Juliette and the reminder of what I had done, how much you hated me for it…”

“You wondered if I still wanted to punish you,” interrupted Asher softly. It was less accusation than acknowledgment. “Even if it meant working with Corbin and betraying Anita.”

“I can understand,” came the reply, so low that Anita almost missed it. “Nothing can ever bring her back or undo what they did to you, not a hundred years, not even a thousand. You watched me pay and pay…but I can understand if it was not enough.”

Asher’s expression was a blank mask of polite disinterest, but she saw how he flinched ever so slightly before controlling himself. As for Jean-Claude, Anita had to dig her nails into her palm to stop herself from wrapping her arms around him. There was a stiffness to his shoulders that she wanted to kiss and touch away and for once, he wasn’t hiding the raw, real emotion from his voice. Even though she had more memories of them together, through Jean-Claude, than anyone else still living, she knew she was still missing many pieces of their history. But that was okay with her; it was something between them, as it should be. She could never be part of their past, but she could and would be part of their future.

Chasing at the heels of that thought was the realization that she might be the only one out of the three of them to be able to see clearly enough to find a way out of this maze of regret and pain. They had punished each other and themselves for so long, for lifetimes, and for what? It couldn’t bring back the dead or change history.

“Stop it,” she said, surprising herself with the touch of anger that came out in the words. “Belle Morte taught you to hurt each other as much as you love each other. I don’t know, maybe it was supposed to prove that vampires could love. If it hurts when you cut, that means there’s some feeling there, right?”

Both of her lovers were silent and she took it as encouragement. Anita was never one for much self-therapy but if there was one thing she had picked up from Micah and her wereleopards, it was that it was never too late to try. Maybe she couldn’t really do comforting, but the thin thread of anger at the absurdity of it all…that was something she could use. “Haven’t you both considered that this is why Corbin tried to divide us and why he almost won? He wasn’t stronger, more skilled, or even that powerful, but he almost killed all of us! He broke us apart, but not with power. Corbin was pathetic and Lisette was just his shadow. Even though Belle Morte was the real mastermind, we _let_ them use our own doubts and fears against us.”

Her outburst rendered them both speechless until Asher chuckled ruefully into the silence. “Anita may not be the most eloquent of us, but she has never been afraid to speak the truth bluntly.”

She looked between him and Jean-Claude, trying desperately to find the right words to get them past their impasse. “Stop focusing on whether you’ve both suffered enough to make up for the past. The only thing that should be enough is that you’re both still here and you can still be together, if you really forgive each other.”

Asher looked as if he were about to protest her last words but as the silence stretched, the lack of response from his dark counterpart sank in. While Anita’s point had gotten through to Asher, Jean-Claude seemed to have hardly even heard her. His gaze was fathomless and haunted, looking so far inward that he shut them out.

“I can understand if it was not enough,” he said again, with an alarming amount of acceptance. “I have always failed you, Asher. Whether I lived for you or tried to die for you, whether I destroyed you or tried to save you… It seems as if no matter what I do, I only hurt you and hurt myself. Others, too. Julianna paid the price of my selfishness and now, Richard. It is only luck that Anita did not as well. Perhaps it is finally time for me to stop trying to hold you close to me.”

“ _Non_ , Jean-Claude,” Asher denied almost before he had finished speaking. “Listen to Anita. Corbin knew our weaknesses, he knew what lay between us like fault lines waiting for the right kind of pressure. Our history is no secret and Belle More has used it like a knife to drive us apart.”

Jean-Claude finally looked at the both of them, first at Asher and then at Anita. “Do you truly believe this, Asher? Or are you only trying to placate me, because you cannot bear the alternative?” He waved a hand, gesturing as if to encompass the entirety of their reality, and Asher reached out to intercept it.

“I forgive you.” The words seemed to take everyone by surprise, but then Asher said it again, more loudly and firmly. “You have waited too long to hear this, but _I forgive you_. In my rage and grief, I blamed you and punished you for what others did. For too long, I wanted you to suffer as I was suffering. You are not the cause of Julianna’s death, Jean-Claude, but it was easier to blame you than to blame myself, until I think even you believed the lie.”

Jean-Claude stood abruptly, pulling his hand free, but Asher stood with him and Anita followed, not sure what she could do. She grabbed Jean-Claude’s hand again, his fingers icy cold against her own though she knew it was not from lack of blood. This was a hurt that was centuries old, scarred over but still infected underneath, and now it was sliced open once again to the core.

Asher was crying now, pinkish tears sliding down both the scarred and smooth skin of his cheeks. But rather than hide behind the shadows and a veil of golden hair, he held himself in the light, holding Jean-Claude’s gaze with his own. “Even with Corbin, Jean-Claude, I know I cannot blame you for believing that I betrayed you, yet it is far easier to hold onto my anger and hurt than admit that I am the cause of the broken trust between us. How can I truly blame you for doubting me when I have thrown the past in your face over and over again? When I tell you that nothing you do will ever be enough to atone for the wrongs I falsely assigned to you?”

The icy blue of Asher’s eyes was too intense and uncomfortable to look at for long, so Jean-Claude turned away only for Anita to hold both his hands. She pressed her face against his chest, feeling her hot tears soak into the silken fabric, and felt him struggle to breathe. It was such a human reaction to being in heartbreak and pain, even when he had not truly needed to breathe for centuries.

Asher slipped his arms around Jean-Claude’s waist from behind and held tight, whispering the words into his ear even though the other vampire had frozen into a statue in his embrace. “We cannot do this anymore, Jean-Claude. I forgive you, but can you not forgive me? Can you not forgive yourself?”

It was silent for so long that Anita began to think that there would be no response forthcoming. When Jean-Claude finally spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “How can I? This time we almost lost Anita because of my mistakes. Tell me, what use is being the Master of the City or a _sourdre de sang_ if I cannot keep her safe? If I cannot even distinguish lover from enemy?”

“Dammit, Jean-Claude!” Anita let go of his hands and clenched her fists in his shirt, fighting the urge to shake some sense into him, to make him actually understand what Asher was saying. “It’s not all your fault. It’s as much mine and Asher’s and everyone else’s. If you have to point the finger at someone, point it at Belle Morte, the bitch who actually deserves it.”

Something about the extremely vindictive way she said it startled a snort of laughter from Asher. It was so undignified and out of place that Anita let out a nervous giggle in response before she even realized it. She looked up and caught Asher’s bemused expression over Jean-Claude’s shoulder, and that was it. The floodgates opened on all her bottled up emotions, anxiety and frustration and grief spilling over in a torrent and taking her with it.

She was in the middle of one of the most serious conversations of her life but Anita just started laughing and couldn’t stop. It was too much and too awful. She’d been alive for less than thirty years and her two vampire lovers had issues stretching back literally hundreds of years. How could she even begin to relate? This conversation, laying all the past wounds bare, made her relationship with Richard look totally juvenile by comparison. She was so far out of her depth, it was ridiculous.

The thought of Richard sobered her up and she stopped laughing, suddenly aware that both of them were looking at her as if she had grown a third head. It at least had the effect of snapping Jean-Claude out of the morass of angst—though admittedly justified—that he had been drowning in. Even he couldn’t stay so angry and hurt when sandwiched between them. Her college days studying preternatural biology felt a million miles away but she was suddenly reminded of those studies she had read about wereanimal aggression being lowered through the sheer pressure of physical contact—in other words, a hug.

Asher looked at Anita, face partly hidden by Jean-Claude’s black curls, and the dark, clear self-awareness she saw in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. She had been afraid that she had actually pushed them too far, past that point of no return that they had both managed to avoid until now. Maybe, as terrible as it sounded, they had needed to cross that breaking point for once and for all.

Jean-Claude’s expression had also calmed as he looked down at her, Asher still holding them both. She closed her eyes for a moment, willing what she and Asher had said to sink in and reach him, now that he was more in control of himself. She finally felt him sigh and his hand coming up to cup her head, fingers threading through her own curls. It wasn’t until then that Anita became aware of the exhaustion that weighed her down like a heavy blanket settling over her shoulders.

“Jean-Claude,” Asher murmured, lips brushing a kiss across the pale curve of his lover’s neck. A year ago, maybe even a few months ago, Anita would have been uncomfortable seeing it. But now it she watched as Jean-Claude’s eyes fluttered closed, his absurdly long lashes forming dark crescents, and she cherished the moment. Asher repeated the whisper, his voice was so gentle that it was almost just a caress, and she suddenly realized that in spite of everything that had happened, it hadn’t been Asher in danger of breaking tonight after all.

When Anita stood on her tiptoes and reached up to pull Jean-Claude down to her, when she kissed him and he returned it with love and passion, she knew everything would be all right.

 

*           *           *

 

 _Once upon a time, he fell in love. For twenty eight years, Asher had been content to be only the_ objet d’amour _of others, for the truth was that he did not want, did not really desire, it seemed, anyone at all. Then came the night Belle Morte took away both his ennui and his life, and Asher believed himself to be to be finally experiencing that grand passion so adored by his countrymen, ever elusive yet all-consuming. It wasn’t until ten long years later that he met Jean-Claude and realized that he had never truly been in love…_

Asher flew silently through the night, no more than a shadow passing over the gothic spires of the Cathedral of St. Étienne. As in much of France, the power of the Catholic Church was evident everywhere, though tensions had reached an all time high with the supporters of the Protestant Reformation, those derided as the Huguenots. He cared little about the political and religious struggles of these townsfolk, however. No, he was here for another reason, one that he had kept secret even from Belle.

He settled down on the rooftop of a building directly across from the current resident of one Julien, Master of the City of Auxerre. Weeks ago, during a dispute at court, one of the vampires had tried to taunt him by implying that Belle Morte would soon replace him with another. It was true that few had ever held Belle Morte’s interest for more than a few years, let alone to the near exclusivity that Asher had enjoyed over the past decade. However, he had heard such threats before and they had all been empty promises—except this time, a specific name had been dropped. A name that Asher later realized he had heard before—some offhand remark about how it was a pity that his maker could not control him, for beauty such as his was unforgettable and incredible.

He had not come to Auxerre with the intention of finding this newly turned vampire, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. It had been easy to find out through his sources that Lisette had turned over the young vampire to her Master of the City—who, it seemed, had hinted that he would in turn gift this rare and stunning gem to Belle Morte herself.

That it itself was more annoyance than threat to Asher, except for another rumor that reached his ears: that one of Belle’s line had inherited the _ardeur_ and coincidentally, was drawing far too much attention from humans in Auxerre. Ever the dutiful lieutenant, Asher had volunteered to look into the situation for Belle, although he was no fan of the Burgundy region of France. He could not shake off the nagging suspicion that the nameless vampire with the _ardeur_ might be the one and same as his supposed soon-to-be successor.

Paranoid as it might seem, he had learned to eliminate potential threats before they turned into real threats. He had not survived and kept his position as a favorite of Belle Morte’s for so long without learning how to be cunning and ruthless. Perhaps Narcisse had exaggerated this new vampire’s appeal in his effort to get under Asher’s skin…but perhaps not. It was better to verify things with his own eyes.

He waited patiently, unbothered by the chill air that drove the townspeople to huddle behind their closed doors. Or perhaps it was the reports of missing people, of dead bodies mysteriously turning up drained of blood but with frozen expressions of ecstasy. It was sloppy work, unnecessarily dangerous for their kind, and had drawn the ire of too many vampires already. If what he had heard was correct, Julien had been supplying his new pet with humans almost nightly. Then Asher would see if this Jean-Claude was, indeed, his rival.

Asher had been born unwanted, the bastard son of a minor nobleman and another nobleman’s unwed daughter. The household he grew up in had hated him, society had barely tolerated him, and yet people were fascinated by him even then, obsessed with the angelic looking child who grew to be an incredibly handsome youth. Though the circumstances of his birth made others scorn him, he quickly learned that there was no shortage of people willing to do him small favors. He found his way to Versailles and from there, it was easy enough for him to use his face and beauty as coin, with wealthy French courtiers, both men and women, vying to be his patrons.

His life on the fringes of the French court was aimless, empty, neither terrible nor glorious; he existed, but for what? For many years, he thought the answer had come in the form of Belle Morte. She alone had given him a second chance at life, a new existence. She favored him above others who had been waiting for decades, sometimes even centuries, and they could only watch his astronomical rise to her side with envy. Asher was not about to let anything, _anyone_ , challenge the place he had secured for himself.

The door across the street eased open a crack and Asher dropped into a crouch and leaned forward over the edge of the rooftop, curiosity getting the better of him. First a gloved hand emerged, followed by a sandy blond, pale-skinned man dressed in formal clothing. Julien. Perhaps the Master of the City had learned the better part of discretion, though it was unfortunate timing. The door nearly shut behind him and Asher sighed in disappointment before it suddenly swung open again and another being emerged.

Every last coherent thought disappeared from Asher’s mind as he stared down from his vantage point. It had only been a glimpse but _mon Dieu_ —ten years felt like a lifetime, but all of the contentment and security that he had earned with Belle Morte vanished the moment he laid eyes on _him._

Julien casually manhandled Jean-Claude, pulling him along with a hand around his wrist, but the young vampire hesitated as if confused. Too late, Asher realized that he must have sensed watching eyes on him—and then the blond vampire was leaning so far over the edge that he nearly toppled right off the building because somehow, by some mystical force in the universe, Jean-Claude was looking straight up at him, even though he should have appeared to be no more than a shadow.

A burning heat enveloped Asher, igniting an immediate lust as he suddenly imagined Jean-Claude’s pale hands touching his body, those rosy lips suckling his cock as sapphire blue eyes much darker than his own looked up at him. Asher’s eyes drank in bewilderment but no fear, though there was a hint of desperation in how Jean-Claude resisted his Master in order to keep staring at Asher. Did the younger vampire actually _see_ him somehow, or was he just reacting out of instinct?

Either way, the moment was broken as Julien stepped back in anger and propelled him forward with a shove that broke Jean-Claude out of his trance. Head dropping down, Jean-Claude followed docilely enough until the pair turned at the end of the street and disappeared out of sight.

Asher was left staring into the darkness, body still primed for sex from a look—a _look_ of all things—from someone he wasn’t sure had even known he was there. What on earth had just happened? It wasn’t Jean-Claude’s beauty, although it was all that was promised and more. But among the jewels of Belle Morte’s court, one got as used to such stunning faces and bodies as much as one could. Asher appreciated beauty, could even be mildly enthralled by it, but that wasn’t what had arrested him so completely.

No, it was something more. An infatuation? Perhaps what they called love at first sight? Simple lust, however unexpected? Or some previously unknown manifestation of the _ardeur_? Asher pondered this, increasingly uncomfortable with himself. No, he was sure it was not that. Well, not…exactly. Feelings swirled in his chest, far more intensely than he had felt in many years, a potent mix of dread and jealousy.

There was no doubt left, however, that Belle Morte would want this young vampire, and the _ardeur_ would only be icing on top of the cake. With relief, Asher straightened from his crouch and concentrated on this more immediate problem. It could take weeks, perhaps even months before Belle Morte’s interest became piqued by talk of Jean-Claude and sent someone to assess him for his suitability in her court. Even without whatever had just happened, Asher knew it was much more likely to happen sooner rather than later.

He paced back and forth on the rooftop, too disturbed to keep himself still, but there was no one to witness his agitation. He would have a word with Julien about better hiding the human bodies before returning to Belle Morte and then… His mind raced through the options. He could tell Belle Morte about Jean-Claude himself, to claim the credit of discovery, but what fool ushered in his own replacement? Uneasiness churned in him at the thought of Jean-Claude with Belle Morte.

Asher left the city of Auxerre that night and kept his secrets to himself.

When the inevitable happened and word of Jean-Claude’s beauty and powers reached Belle’s ears, he made sure that he was the one sent to vet the new vampire. He recommended against bringing him to court, knowing full well that Belle Morte was going to do so regardless of the results from Asher’s report. He had to be oh so careful not to tip his hand, not to betray his real thoughts to anyone.

The next time he met Jean-Claude at court, he let everyone see his jealousy and his fear of being replaced. He made his hatred of Jean-Claude secret to none, least of all Jean-Claude himself. Above all, he made sure that Belle Morte knew just how much the raven-haired vampire’s arrival at court had destroyed everything he thought he had loved. Some of it was genuine—he despised Jean-Claude and couldn’t bear the thought of him being with Belle.

Not because he was threatened by Jean-Claude, but because he wanted him for himself.

_Once, Asher had worshipped Belle Morte and thought himself satisfied. For ten years, he had been in love in the only way he had known it, but true happiness didn’t begin until he met Jean-Claude. Night to his day, dark to his light, rivals and a perfect match for Belle’s collection—but more importantly, for each other. They were companions, friends, and lovers. And so, their story began._

*           *           *

 

Night had fallen, the Circus of the Damned was back in business as usual, and Jean-Claude waited in his rooms for Anita’s arrival with no small amount of trepidation. He had already spent a few hours slogging through invoices, guest performer scheduling, and other paperwork that needed his approval. While the very mundaneness of the work was welcome sometimes, it only intensified his restlessness tonight.

It had been three weeks since Corbin’s attack and while things had been as peaceful as they ever got, things would never be the same as before. Anita had only left him a cryptic message telling him that she would be over for the night and that she was hoping Asher would be available. While she had coyly called it a “date” and Jean-Claude was ever hopeful for good news, one never really knew a woman’s mood.

He had almost been about to find Asher when there was a small knock on his door and the golden haired vampire walked in wearing only a white, fur-lined bathrobe. Other than the color, it was nearly identical to the one that Anita so loved on Jean-Claude, and for good reason; it had been a gift from her. Jean-Claude couldn’t hide his surprise even as his eyes ran appreciatively up and down Asher’s body, lingering at the wide V of bare chest. He was happy beyond words that his lover no longer felt the need to hide in shadows because of his scars. Anita had done what he, in hundreds of years, could not—she had finally gotten through to Asher. And this was after he had nearly killed her, no less. What Asher had experienced and had done for them could have thrown him back into the deepest depression, and it would have been understandable. But somehow his sacrifice had also brought him a measure of clarity and peace.

Jean-Claude wasn’t going to question a miracle. Still, nagging doubts wore away at him and he couldn’t keep himself from still waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the American saying went. Richard’s death had changed Anita. He wasn’t sure how much of it was due simply to her grief over the man that everyone knew she had once hoped to marry, the man who had represented the ever dwindling possibility of a normal life. But some of the changes, he knew, were from the broken triumvirate and the metaphysical bonds that had allowed their character traits and feelings to bleed into one another.

None of them had realized just how tightly they had been bound or how much they had shaped each other subconsciously. Anita might have given them rage and Jean-Claude his ruthlessness, but Richard’s influence was infinitely more subtle and harder to track than cravings for flesh or blood. He had been full of self-loathing, but that was only the tip of the iceberg—the foundation of which was doubt. It was only now, too late, that Jean-Claude was able to forgive him for the many times he had refused to help or tried to stay out of their battles. Richard had been waging the greatest war of all, inside himself.

He feared and doubted himself on so many things, it wasn’t until his absence that both Anita and Jean-Claude realized that Richard’s control and ability to hide his emotional state from them were far greater than his erratic behavior would have suggested. His was a classic case of cognitive dissonance: homophobic yet fighting his attraction to Jean-Claude, the Ulfric of a wolf pack yet unwilling to embrace his identity as a beast, and most of all, forever caught between a normal life of good old-fashioned values and the real world full of monsters. Richard had been stronger than any of them would have guessed, but also more fragile, his strength the brittle kind.

“You worry too much,” Asher murmured, bringing Jean-Claude back to the present and out of his grim thoughts. He gave Jean-Claude a sidelong glance, obviously displeased at how quickly his lover’s attention had wandered away from him. “Perhaps I should give you something else to think about?”

Jean-Claude sighed, seeing the rosy flush to Asher’s cheeks and the playful lust in his glittering icy blue eyes. Asher had fed already, as he had too, but despite everything that _had_ changed, this hadn’t—their romantic interactions remained limited. It was always two steps forward, one step back with Anita, and Jean-Claude had been sure that Corbin was the end of them. He wasn’t willing to push Anita so far, not just after he had almost lost Asher from his own lack of trust. He was willing to be patient. But Asher—Asher didn’t hold back and he had not hesitated in his seduction of one poor, increasingly frustrated Master of the City.

“Relax, _mon ami,_ ” he was told, but it was hard to when he was being gently herded toward the bed. The backs of his thighs hit the edge and he sat down. Asher wasted no time easing his body between Jean-Claude’s spread legs and then every last thought in Jean-Claude’s mind fled because Asher’s robe had come untied and he was gloriously naked and erect, the soft white fabric framing his muscular body perfectly. The fur only created an intriguing contrast of textures with Asher’s velvet smooth skin and rough scars. Any protest he might have attempted to make dried up as the blond pressed himself right up against Jean-Claude’s abdomen, letting him feel every hard inch of his arousal.

Jean-Claude moaned as Asher kissed his neck and then licked the hollow of his throat, even as his hands tugged loose the tucked in back of Jean-Claude’s dress shirt and slid under to feel the hot, scarred skin of his shoulders. Asher kneaded the tight muscles there, his hands working magically until Jean-Claude melted beneath his touch. Then his clever fingers deftly unbuttoned the shirt and slid it half off before opting to rub circles against the pale pink nipples that he had uncovered.

Asher’s tongue replaced his fingers and he played until Jean-Claude was arching up and gasping from the sensations, barely registering that Asher had unbuttoned and unzipped his leather pants to free his straining, swollen cock. The other vampire took his time, tracing the slick cross-shaped scar with his tongue as well, laving skin wet and blowing on it wickedly, before moving on lower. He looked up at Jean-Claude even as he kissed his way down, his intentions as crystal clear as his irises. His lips curled into a smile when his lover shivered from the sensual onslaught of heat and cold, a naked promise between them.

“Asher,” Jean-Claude panted, unsure himself whether he was begging for more or making a last ditch effort at a protest. “We should…” _wait,_ his mind mixed confusedly with _fuck_ only moments before a strangled moan burst from his throat as Asher took the head of his cock into his mouth and sucked, his tongue licking in swirls. Jean-Claude’s eyes fluttered shut and it took the entirety of his willpower to hold still as Asher made a small hum of pleasure, ever so carefully grazing his fangs just enough to be felt. It was a small thing, so very intimate and private between them, but it sent him to another level of wantonness. With anyone else it would have been accidental, but with Asher it was a deliberate, provocative act that threw Jean-Claude straight back to their earliest days, when every moment together was a contradiction of trust and danger.

The memories came flooding back in a rush and he nearly came when Asher flicked his tongue and sucked harder, pushing him all the way to the edge but not quite letting him fall. They knew each other as only old lovers could—what was craved most, what excited beyond compare, all the little pleasurable secrets that took a lifetime to discover and explore. They both still remembered the ways they would tease and torment each other, deny to excruciating lengths and then finally, indulgently, satisfy.

Asher stopped for a moment, pulling his lips off with a wet pop, though not missing Jean-Claude’s gasp at the sudden absence or how his eyes opened in a pleading look. “I missed this,” he declared huskily. “I missed the taste of you, the way your cock would throb against my tongue when you came.” His lips were wet and his pupils huge, dilated with sheer lust rather than any form of vampiric power.

“Taste me again,” Jean-Claude gasped, but Asher was already doing so, licking the drop of silky, salty fluid off before swallowing him down, this time not stopping until he had taken it all.

Asher’s pale throat worked hard in the strong column of his neck, locks of his hair falling in a golden veil which obscured part of Jean-Claude’s view but somehow only intensified the eroticism of it. He worshipped him with slow glides down his throat, first taking the head into his mouth and then leisurely more and more, until the entire length of him disappeared and Jean-Claude was out of his mind. He clenched the sheets beneath him with one hand, the other coming up to thread through Asher’s hair before suddenly twisting the strands between his fingers and pulling hard. Asher’s eyes flew up to meet his and Jean-Claude felt himself drown in the look more completely than he ever had in the _ardeur_.

He sat up as Asher knelt lower between his legs, posture deliberately submissive. He also set the pace now, fast and sloppy and demanding, but his selfishness only excited Asher more. The vampire continued to look up at him with a heavy, drugged gaze, reveling in the control that Jean-Claude exerted but also in the sounds he drew from his lover that was proof of his own mastery.

“ _Mon Dieu,_ you are so beautiful…” Jean-Claude’s cock throbbed and he coated Asher’s tongue with a small gush of cream even as he tried to restrain himself. Asher’s face was flushed; his half closed eyes glittered with unholy blue fire and his hair was a burnished, metallic gold in Jean-Claude’s tight grasp. The vision of him was mesmerizing, the pleasure from the wet heat of his mouth so intense that it was a surprise when he also reached out a hand to cup the soft sack between Jean-Claude’s legs. He fondled his balls until they tightened with the need for release before letting his fingers wander down further to suggestively rub beneath.

“Asher!” Jean-Claude fought for the last shreds of control, his hips jerking as he gave up all intent of being gentle, simply fucking Asher’s mouth as hard as he could. Asher teased rather than penetrated with his fingers, but the silent promise that he would later be fucked just as thoroughly as he was now using Asher sent him over the edge. He shuddered hard and lost his rhythm, barely able to gasp a warning as he drove himself down Asher’s throat. “I’m going to come.”

The pleasure burst in a cascade of sensations and he cried out as Asher swallowed convulsively, expertly taking him deep. Jean-Claude fed him spurt after spurt of his seed, unable to hold back anything when his lover was intent on milking every drop from him.

Finally, exhausted and boneless, he fell back onto the cool sheets of the bed. Asher joined him there with a glorious laugh, sliding his needy body against Jean-Claude’s in a way that suddenly made him want more all over again.

He would never tire of this, of wanting Asher—it was a desire that was only renewed each time it was satiated. They kissed in a tangle of limbs and sheets that smelled of sex, Asher’s lust only flaring higher with the knowledge that Jean-Claude was tasting himself.

“Have I conquered you so thoroughly already?” The blond vampire _tsk_ ed in mock disappointment. Still, his eyes glowed with emotion and possessive pride.

“Your turn, _mon chardonneret,_ ” Jean-Claude answered with his most beguiling smile. He reached out a hand to caress Asher’s scarred cheek but then froze at the sudden sharp staccato of a knock on the door.

 

*           *           *

 

Asher watched as surprise, doubt, and a perhaps a shadow of guilt crossed Jean-Claude’s expression before he quickly smoothed it into a bland, neutral mask. It would have fooled anyone else but Asher could see how torn he felt, how desperately he tried to backtrack from Asher, from what they had just done, while at the same time desperately trying _not_ to backtrack, at least in front of him.

For a moment, as the door opened and Anita entered the room, Asher felt the familiar burn of envy and resentment. They were in Belle Morte’s chambers again and their dark mistress was starting to become jealous, for they as much as they had tried to hide it, they were ever so slowly turning to each other rather than her. Back then, Asher had raged in the certainty of the knowledge that Jean-Claude did love him—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t allowed. Neither could risk falling from grace.

With some difficulty, Asher forced himself out of memory and back to the present. Jean-Claude was now looking at him, rather than Anita, with a hint of alarm. Asher took in a deep breath, willing himself not to overreact. He reminded himself that Jean-Claude’s obvious struggle with both shame and defiance was only a testament to his loyalty and faithfulness to Anita—but also, to the love he had for Asher. If anything, Asher and Anita owed him an apology for making him feel as if he had betrayed them both in different ways. Asher should have told Jean-Claude, should have made it all clear, but he hadn’t. Maybe it was a petty test or maybe it spoke of a bone-deep insecurity, but some part of him had needed to see if Jean-Claude would choose him, with _or_ without Anita’s blessing.

Anita looked radiant, a dark queen coming home to claim her court. She matched Jean-Claude so perfectly, his heart twisted in his chest. Something of what he was feeling must have shown on his face because she went to him first, standing on tiptoes and pulling him down for a kiss that heated his blood again and left him wanting more than ever. He pressed against her, his body hard and eager, and let out a breath in a small sigh as she responded with just as much anticipation.

Jean-Claude’s surprise and guilt was rapidly turning into chagrin as he put the pieces together—Anita’s utter lack of shock, her calm acceptance of finding her lovers in bed together and without her. As Asher undressed Anita and sent her tumbling into Jean-Claude’s willing arms before joining them both in bed, that chagrin turned into a hesitant happiness and then wonder. It was proof that things were actually changing—that _they_ were changing, in small ways and in large. It had taken more sacrifice and grief than any of them would have been willing to pay, but they had become stronger for it, rather than breaking apart.

“You knew,” Jean-Claude accused him, turning to look at Asher. “You must have spoken to _ma petite_ before…” Understanding turned into indignation as he obviously thought of all the times the golden haired vampire had deliberately tested his restraint over the last three weeks. “And yet you set out to seduce me!”

Asher was having a hard time holding back a smirk. “ _Mon coeur,_ I would never be so presumptuous as to offer you anything less than the best of my efforts.”

Anita’s laughter filled the small space between them like a warm fire, her pale breasts drawing both their gazes as her chest shook. She had benefited from his frustration, Asher having frequently left him on edge and obviously in need. Jean-Claude turned his ire on her as she raised her hands in contrition. “Well, I did tell Asher that it was up to him to win you over. Honestly, Jean-Claude, I didn’t think you would hold out _that_ long.”

What reply the Master of the City might have made in response to the revelation that his lovers had conspired against him was lost as Anita traced her tongue and lips over the slick cross shaped scar on his chest, one of the things she had always loved to do. Asher’s hands slid over her skin in the meantime, tracing the bumpy tissue of her own scars. None of them were unmarked by their experiences, but rather than cover the evidence of his past in shame, Asher had finally come to realize that his scars were as much a mark of his survival as it was of his loss.

As if sensing his thoughts, Jean-Claude caught Asher’s gaze with his own as he reached out to brush the long golden hair away from Asher’s face and over his shoulder. It was not often that Jean-Claude played the coquette but it was in his eyes now, a silent dare for Asher to finish his seduction and claim his prize. Perhaps it was his little revenge but it drove his golden haired lover wild.

“I believe you said it was my turn?” Asher said, his patience nearing its limit. “Look at me, Jean-Claude.”

They both looked. It was impossible not to, not when the vampire knew exactly how to captivate his audience. Jean-Claude watched Asher reach down and wrap his hand around his own straining cock, stroking once, twice—the head flushed a deep ruby red and glistening with the precome that dripped down the swollen shaft.

Anita made a low sound of want in her throat but Asher continued relentlessly, baiting the still silent Master of the City. “See how much I need you. How much I want the three of us together in truth.” He was so hard and painfully erect that the tip curved up and nearly brushed against the rippling panes of his abdomen.

Jean-Claude’s gaze lingered on Asher as if he were enspelled, Anita hardly daring to breath as the tension ratcheted up another level. She hadn’t been completely sure how she would react to them, to _this_ , but her fears seemed dramatic and foolish now. Her conservative upbringing and personal reservations had kept them apart, but the eroticism of the scene before her drove the last doubts away. There was something achingly beautiful about watching Jean-Claude watch Asher in the throes of lust, about the two of them together, the contrast of dark and light. For a moment, she could understand how even Belle Morte, reigning over a court built on pleasure, could feel threatened by such unearthly passion.

“Drink from me,” said Anita to Jean-Claude, and the other vampire’s eyes became pools of molten blue fire at the command in her voice. Asher kissed the back of his neck even as Anita leaned in again to whisper in his ear exactly what she wanted of them both, the fantasy she painted leaving both vampires drowning in need.

Jean-Claude chose the smooth juncture between neck and shoulder where Anita’s pulse could easily be felt just by touch. As he drank, Asher slid one finger and then two into Anita’s wet heat, simultaneously using his thumb to rub delicate circles right over the center of her pleasure. She writhed against the silk sheets at first, caught between Asher’s touch and Jean-Claude’s bite, and then relaxed briefly before another kind of tension overtook her body. By then, Jean-Claude had switched to kissing and licking her breasts, his hands cupping the soft mounds as he lay halfway on top of her. Asher spooned him from behind, making no secret of his intentions as their naked bodies aligned.

Unable to stay quiet, Anita moaned at the sensations assaulting her body and then cried out in frustration as Asher withdrew his fingers right before she could come. Instead, he shifted his position as he wrapped his hand around Jean-Claude’s once again impressive arousal and guided it to Anita. As soon as he slid home, his cock filling her completely on the first stroke, she tensed with the overload of pleasure. Anita shook and clenched around him as she came, crying out wordlessly.

But Jean-Claude was only getting started, his back bowed as he rocked his hips back and forth, fully aware that Asher was watching every plunge of his cock into slick, tight, heaven. Anita shuddered in ecstasy but managed to open her eyes just enough to look at Asher.

“Take him,” she gasped. “Fuck him like he’s fucking me.”

No other encouragement was needed. Asher grabbed a bottle from the dresser next to the bed and then returned to join them, his fingers slick, and then he was sliding one into Jean-Claude’s ass and pumping it in and out. Jean-Claude groaned and bucked his hips, slamming into Anita even as Asher added another finger.

“Asher, please…!”

“ _Now_ , Asher, I need you…”

In the haze of pleasure, he couldn’t even distinguish who said what, knowing only that both were begging him. He was so ready that he was leaking; he smoothed the silky fluid across the sensitive crown of his cock as it jerked involuntarily. Asher threw back his head and gritted his teeth, trying desperately not to climax as he eased into Jean-Claude, who had stilled for the moment, buried deep in Anita.

It had been so long since he had seen his cock between the perfect spheres of Jean-Claude’s ass or marveled at the sweet dip of his lower back as it gleamed with a sheen of sweat. Once, long ago, he had ran his fingers across taut, satiny skin and thought that his lover must be a marble David come to life. Now, ever so slowly, he slid himself in and out, gripping Jean-Claude’s hips so firmly that his fingertips made little white indentations on that flawless body.

The Master of the City was sensually trapped between his two lovers, the situation spiraling out of his control. For once, Jean-Claude gave in to it and surrendered himself. Their bodies moved together, Asher thrusting his thick shaft in long strokes even as the motions rocked Jean-Claude’s cock deep into Anita. The rhythmic sounds of flesh slapping against flesh was almost drowned out by Asher’s groans as he went harder, faster, frantic as their ecstasy reached a peak that was almost oblivion.

Then Anita convulsed as she came again, unleashing a tidal wave of the _ardeur_ that swallowed them all whole. It ripped away the last vestiges of control that Jean-Claude had kept, sending him screaming into orgasm even as Asher sank his fangs into his neck from behind. His bite was a terrifyingly endless echo chamber of pleasure for them all, magnified by the truths revealed by _ardeur_. Want, need, love, lust…all of it driving toward an inevitable completion that had been denied for too long. Asher’s cries joined his lovers’ as he thrust one last time and exploded, spilling himself into Jean-Claude in a white hot rush.

They lay there in a collapsed tangle of limbs, still joined together as they tried to recover, each aftershock setting off a chain reaction from their oversensitized bodies. A breathy laugh bubbled up from Anita as her skin cooled and muscles relaxed. Her leg was still flung over Jean-Claude’s hip and she shivered as Asher reached out a languid hand to run it lightly down from thigh all the way to foot.

 _“Je t’aime_ ,” Jean-Claude murmured to the both of them, though he was no more than vocalizing an afterthought that they all knew. Asher finally withdrew with a soft groan, but even after they had all separated, they were in no hurry to move, too overcome by a pleasant lassitude. There would be time enough later to enjoy a hot soak in the gleaming black marble tub, to laugh and kiss and cry together. At some point they would again join the others who occupied cherished places in their lives, but for now, it was only the three of them, and it was enough.

It was quiet, but it was not the stifling silence of a past filled with sorrows too heavy to bear, nor was it the silence of an anger that had smoldered over centuries. It was the silence of things that no longer needed to be said, the silence of peace.

 

*           *           *

_Once upon a time, there were lovers…_

*           *           *

 

A/N: So after over a year of dithering about with this chapter, I’m still not sure if I like this or hate it. If I hadn’t been listening to The xx – Intro for these last scenes (it’s worth checking out on YouTube, really!), this probably never would have been posted. Also, I want to encourage you guys to check out my favorite fanart of Asher, from the artist **fuchsiart** on DeviantArt. The detail is just gorgeous! In similar vein, LeafOfSteel has a beautiful portrait of Jean-Claude that is well worth a Google :) Hopefully you enjoyed this story! **Please review**!


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